


Silver and Cold

by wily_one24



Category: Veronica Mars - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love Triangles, everyone is shocked, jacqui finishes an abandoned fic after years of abandonment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-07-02
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:23:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wily_one24/pseuds/wily_one24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her  life might have been better, but denial was still a close, personal friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Silver and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> **Characters:** Logan. Veronica. Casey. The usual other college suspects.  
>  **Warning:** Naught, really, but... teh sex!  
>  **Timeline:** Set nearly two years after the finale. Spoils the entire series.  
>  **Summary:** The introduction of an old friend causes further complications in the already over complicated couple we love so much.  
>  **Disclaimer:** They ain't mine. Though I wouldn't complain if they were.

*~*~*~*

Veronica Mars liked to laugh.

It was such an absurdly silly, simple thought that it made her giggle. Out loud. The tip of her Corona bottle rested lightly on her lower lip, forgotten in the process of taking a drink. She was warm, she was fuzzy, she was most likely more than a little buzzed from the beer.

It occurred to her that there was a time, four or five years, a good quarter of her life, when she’d had very little to laugh about. At the time it had seemed like weight upon weight upon weight hefted onto her shoulders and, she had to admit, even from a distance the amount that she’d dealt with was heavy.

But as she let her shoulder jingle with the mirth, bouncing the weight of the bottle in her hand, she was able to give it the distance it deserved. That time was over, or so she tentatively let herself believe. She’d fought long and hard and had rescued something resembling a life.

“Are you giggling?”

The voice sounded surprised, pleasantly so against her shoulder and she smiled, leaned into it.

“Mmmmm.” Her head flopped into a lazy nod against him and she closed her eyes. “Yup.”

“Girl, you’ve had enough.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder, separated herself from the warmth of his space and pouted as she wrapped her fingers cleanly around the neck of her drink and pulled it closer.

“Mine.” Her eyes narrowed. “My beer.”

He laughed, a warm, throaty sound, and patted the top of her thigh, turning to continue his conversation.

She looked at the table, at the familiar Friday night faces around her and let herself drift.

Rock bottom had come, not as everyone had expected at the end of her Hearst freshman year, but a month or two into her sophomore year. She’d finished the previous year with the scandal of her net video and the dean’s murder and the rapes and her father’s public humiliation and criminal charges.

She’d felt them, felt them all watching her, waiting like vultures for the breakdown. And, because she was Veronica Mars and she never faltered, she spent a lot of energy proving just how non-affected she was by the whole thing.

Her internship had come and gone. It was just as she’d expected, a good experience, sometimes boring, she’d gotten lots of coffee and learned how to use the photocopy machine with precision, but she’d also raised a few eyebrows and her name was known and she’d gotten an invite back for the following year.

To her dismay, but surprisingly little emotion other than that, Piz had transferred back to Oregon after the summer. He had handled the infamy of their public debut with rather less grace than she’d hoped. He hadn’t handled the stares and whispers and innuendo all that well. He hadn’t handled the constant ever present, watchful glare from camp Logan well. He hadn’t handled her increasing insistence that she was ‘fine’.

In short, he just hadn’t been able to handle anything that well.

“Hey girl.” She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked to the left. “You sure you’re okay? We were gonna…”

Veronica smiled.

“M’fine. I’ll get home.” She nodded towards the girl on his opposite side. “You make sure she gets home safe, k?”

He pretended to frown.

“You better not be suggesting what I think… because if you are, you’re more twisted than I thought.”

She laughed.

“Go, Wallace. I’m sure someone here is going my way.”

As much as she hated to admit it, having Piz gone made things a lot easier. There’d been a loaded tension between her and Wallace for a while and he’d returned from Africa straighter and stronger and with a determination and purpose she hadn’t seen in him before. He’d grown. And she’d had to work long and hard to get them back to being the close friends she’d once assumed they were.

He had a new roommate, Charles, a perpetually flamboyant gay pre-med who had the habit of calling her Pixie and trying to steal her studded purse. This new development suited everyone just fine and Veronica lived in the near certain assurance she wouldn’t be starring in any kind of video with him any time soon.

“Go, man.” Another voice lilted across the table. “I’ll take her home.”

He gave her shoulder a squeeze in goodbye and she nodded in acknowledgement and then he was headed out the door with his latest conquest. She turned back to the table to find intense brown eyes giving her the once over.

“You sure you’re okay?”

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, straightening up.

“Just fine, thank you, Logan.” He seemed to relax, but she could still feel his interest. “Do you want me to recite the alphabet backwards? Walk a straight line? Because I’m fairly sure I could.”

“Fairly?”

She took her time to consider.

“Pretty much. Maybe.”

It seemed to satisfy him and he eased back into the general hum of the table. She watched him swirl his own bottle in his hand and knew, without asking, that he was weighing the option of ordering another or just finishing what he had and calling it quits.

He upended the bottle, drained it, and let it fall firmly back to the table.

Going home it was.

“Pick up your goods and chattels, Mars.” Logan stood up and slipped a fifty onto the counter. “Your carriage awaits.”

She could have made a fuss, could have protested and whined and caused a scene, but she let it go. It wasn’t the first time he’d paid for her and it wouldn’t be the last and if they fought about money every time he flashed his wallet, they wouldn’t do anything else.

It all evened out in the wash.

She said goodbye to Mac and Charles and Joanna and spun with a little curtsy as Logan appeared at her side. The strap of her bag slipped on her shoulder and she stopped to right it, her knee giving out slightly. A heat infused the small of her back and she inhaled sharply.

Her whole body went still for a minute and then Logan took his hand away, brushed over the moment by escorting her out through the tables and towards the door.

Her life might have been better, but denial was still a close, personal friend.

He had kept his distance after he’d beaten Gorya down, but he’d made sure she knew he’d made no such agreement to stay out of her life. He’d been there in the shadows and he wasn’t going away and, after finding him bruised and battered at the entry to her apartment one night, Veronica had finally given in.

After, of course, she’d pulled the last of her favors and shamed some high profile secret society members and Gorya had been mysteriously transferred closer to his hometown.

They were friends now.

It hadn’t been easy or smooth sailing, but they’d both agreed they wanted each other in their lives and they also both agreed they were too volatile together, especially after another failed attempt that had ended before it even really begun. There’d been arguments and tears and shouting and recriminations and pointed barbs, but they’d found a balance.

She had to admit it; nearly two years after she’d told him she could never forgive him, Veronica was grateful to have Logan as a friend. Even if things were occasionally awkward or lines were crossed. After a few disastrous dates, on both sides, they’d found a system that worked.

Logan didn’t seem to have any particular interest in a serious girlfriend and, if he was getting tail on the side, he’d been doing it very discreetly and not rubbing it in her face and she chose to believe he took care of himself and remained chaste and virtuous. Veronica, for her part, hadn’t really thought about a partner in a long time.

She was happy and she was comfortable and her life was stable. The thought of tipping any one of those balances scared her witless. So she made herself busy and didn’t think about guys.

Much.

They reached the door of the bar just in time to be jostled by a fresh-faced red haired girl with freckles. She looked up at them in surprise and then her face softened when she saw who it was.

“Oh, hey Logan.”

The tone of her voice made Veronica’s ears prickle and she felt him tense next to her.

“Oh.” He blushed. “Hey Chris. Christina…”

“Chrissie.” She corrected with a small dent in her smile. “What are you up to tonight?”

Logan gestured to the exit.

“We were just on our way out, so…”

Veronica stared at her shoes as she was ushered out onto the street. She could feel her face flush and her cheeks redden and the fingernails of her right hand clenched inside her fist.

“Don’t.” She said it with more force than she’d meant to. “You don’t need to take me home if you have better things to do.”

His face stretched out in the too innocent young boy look that always made him seem guilty and he looked to the side, searched for an exit.

It came as an arm around her waist.

“Hey, man, it’s okay, I’ll take her home. You go have fun.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

Her sophomore year had started out strained, she’d been busy getting through the day not thinking about the sniggers and pointed comments and glaring lack of Piz, her friends at the time were distant and she knew she was to blame, and her home life hadn’t been much better.

Since the election, her relationship with her father became strained, edged, and awkward. He’d asked her outright what had happened and hadn’t been able to let it go when she’d asked him to. They’d argued several times, before and after she’d gone to Quantico.

It got the point where, during one particular heated shouted match as he’d accused her of creating false crimes for the Kanes just so she could attack them, she’d caved. She’d actually told him about Gorya and the Castle and how it had led to the Kane house before she even knew it was the Kane house and, most of all, she’d told him why.

His face when she’d tossed the CD at him had been exactly what she’d been afraid of and, just as she’d assumed, he hadn’t been able to look at her the same way for a while after that.

He hadn’t been the same after the election and, eventually, he admitted to her he was sick of the town and disillusioned and needed an exit. He told her of a job he’d been offered as consultant and head of a small personal security firm an hour past LA.

Veronica had wanted to believe it was merely that, the inevitable lack of faith in Neptune, the town wearing him down, but she didn’t believe a job offer had randomly fallen in his lap and still secretly believed it was her and the damn tape and the Kanes breaking them both down again, one too many times. Her guilt was bitter some nights.

He’d left her with a month of paid rent and the offer to switch colleges once he’d sorted out a place for them to live.

It was then, six weeks into the school term as Veronica was living alone and juggling her time and finances and emotions, that Backup had been struck by a car. She’d been scared and helpless and alone, utterly alone, fatherless and Wallace-less and Piz-less and Mac-less and even Logan-less.

Backup had made it through, being nursed back to health as Veronica slowly fell apart in the dingy little boxed up apartment that felt too large without her father. She’d done something she hadn’t done for as long as she could remember. She took a long look at herself. There’d been changes to make and she’d started to make them.

She’d agonized for torturous hours and, after much thought, had surprised herself by choosing to stay in Neptune. She kept the office open part time, outside of college hours, and made decent enough money from clients who didn’t turn their noses up when they found out there was nobody more senior than the tiny blonde elf behind the desk. She’d rebuilt slightly burned bridges between herself and Wallace and Mac and then built new ones with Charles and Mac’s new roommate Joanna. She visited her father ever few weekends and took him photos of Backup.

Accommodation hadn’t been that simple. She had originally assumed she could live in a dorm, but two months into the school year, applications had closed and a campus housing shortage had made it impossible to find anything. Money from the office was livable, but not enough to get a place of her own.

That was the beginning of the most awkward three months of her new life.

In a rather conveniently timed move, Logan had announced his utter disregard for the Grand and the fact he needed his own space and had convinced her, she’s still not sure exactly how, to move in with him. Friends, of course, just friends, even though there may have been some accidental and not so accidental shower confusions and flirting and line testing.

And then, to everyone’s surprise, the tension eased. As two had been a crowd, so had three become company. They’d gotten a roommate. The house was big enough; there’d been plenty of room and the added break in the flow had been welcome.

When Dick had come to them announcing his departure from the Grand as well, Veronica had blanched. She’d been trying to reach out to her friends, but she had limits. He hadn’t been asking for a place for himself, however, having decided to move back in with his father who was being released from jail, but for the friend he’d been planning to move with.

Which is how, one afternoon after spending the day at the beach, Veronica and Logan had arrived home to find Casey Gant unpacking boxes in their spare room.

One afternoon, about a month after he’d moved in and things had become more settled, Veronica had asked him if he had really intended to move in with Dick Casablancas. Casey’s face had said it all, but he’d explained that his mother had gotten sick and he’d relocated back to Neptune to be closer to her and a degree from Hearst College was the same as a degree from Stanford, especially since he owned the company he was going to work in after he’d finished.

She’d asked him why he hadn’t just bought a place of his own, considering he could buy the entire College if he wanted, and he’d told her he didn’t want to be one of those people who just bought places for one year. He’d asked around his old stomping grounds and Dick had been the only one looking. He had, he’d told her with a wink, been incredibly grateful to learn there was room at the Mars-Echolls abode.

Not that the adjustment there had been easy, either. Logan had, for lack of better phrasing, spent a lot of time peeing circles around her and marking his territory, eyeballing Casey with the scrutiny of an overprotective ex. Casey, for his part, hadn’t made things entirely easy on that front, deliberately pushing Logan’s buttons until Veronica had just bought them both gift wrapped measuring tapes and told them to keep her out of it.

It had eventually gotten easier, once the limits had been drawn, they’d settled down to easy housemates and comfortable relationships and were more often than not glad of each others company. Veronica had been pleasantly surprised to find that, without any romantic entanglements, living with two guys was both easy and fun. She’d always found the company of guys easier than that of other girls, easier to open up to them, to trust them.

A strange, lingering legacy of Lilly Kane and Lianne Mars, she supposed. All of her close friends, save one, were men.

“Hey.” Casey let his hand fall from her waist and she felt the loss of it with less relief than she had Logan’s. “You been drinking?”

“Mm hmm.” She nodded and held up the fingers of one hand, alternating between keeping her thumb up or down. “Four or five.”

He looked at her hand, splayed fingers and open palm, and laced his own with it, tugged her into a casual walk towards his car. She watched the easy arc of their hands swinging between them.

“You looked like you needed an exit.”

She wanted to smile at him, wanted to brush it off as not mattering, inconsequential, but she failed miserably.

“Yeah.” In the end, it was easier to admit to the truth, he’d get it out of her anyway. “I just… well, she seemed nice.”

Her inflection on the word ‘nice’ suggested she thought anything but. He squeezed her hand in response.

The smooth existence of the happy trio had lasted for nearly a year, a few months into Veronica and Logan’s junior year at Hearst. After several horrific months the previous year, Casey had decided not to return to Stanford, even though there was no sick mother to be near anymore.

And then, Veronica liked to think inevitably, the innocent teasing and games between her and Logan began to change, to develop, to revert back into something a little stronger. They’d played at forgiveness and tested the waters and Logan had promised to be more open with her and she promised to trust him more. Things had started out okay and Veronica had let herself get vulnerable, breaking old habits and defenses to do so.

Until Logan had gotten cold feet or turned tail or wizened up or whatever he wanted to call it and slammed the just friends wall right back up. She didn’t want to admit it, but that had hurt. It wasn’t just rejection, it was _Logan’s_ rejection and one she couldn’t even argue with, because she agreed with the basic premise.

So they stayed friends and Veronica bit her lip and refused to give into outright howling every time Logan began to slip on hiding his extra curricular activities. She told herself it was a knee jerk reaction; that he was trying too hard to convince both himself and her that it was what he wanted by seeing other women.

She had gotten over the Madison thing a while ago, but she wasn’t sure she was going to get over Christina (or Chrissie or whatever her name was) or Meagan or Donna or whomever he felt the need to hide behind next week.

It was easy enough fooling most people, even close friends, but somehow harder to fool the perceptive gaze of Casey Gant.

He’d picked up on it and they’d talked and she’d cried and he’d promised to break Logan’s kneecaps and ever since he’d been protective of her, proprietary.

She wasn’t sure she liked it, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t, so she let it be.

“You wanna head home?” He asked when they were buckled into his car, giving her a wink and a grin. “Or you wanna grab a pizza first?”

Her stomach growled in response and Veronica’s lips curled into a small smile as she stared out the passenger window. Sometimes it was good to have perceptive friends.

***  
***

Casey wondered, not for the first time, just how tacky it would be to purchase his degree.

He closed the book with a thud, pages fluttering shut in a whorl of words and yellow highlighter. There was a headache threatening to break through at the base of his skull and there was no way known to man he could be expected to concentrate on the electronic revolution of business when that smell radiated throughout the house. It made his stomach turn in knots even though he’d just eaten hours before.

It made him hungry and, being the sadomasochistic fool he was, he just had to go look.

Veronica stood in the kitchen with her back to him, the buds of her iPod embedded in her ears as she hummed to whatever was playing, bending at the waist as she leaned over the bench doing something to a tray of baked goods.

He’d lied to her; of course he’d lied.

He had never planned to move in with Dick Casablancas. He could barely tolerate Dick, he never had, and it wasn’t a sense of camaraderie and kinship that had kept him talking to the guy all these years. It was a keen observation of the human condition. In short, Dick was a gossip queen.

Casey had been, by right of birth and social standing and the undeclared creed of the masses, one of the rich elite at Neptune High. He’d moved in the right circles, smarmed with the best of them, schmoozed and played the game. Ages and grade levels had never mattered much to the 09ers, they’d all been lumped together and they didn’t stray very far, huddling together in a near incestuous group of rich and powerful.

Deep down, he’d never really had much time for them. He’d certainly never had much time for Lilly Kane, still didn’t, and he’d never really understood the fuss made by half the school. He wasn’t heartless and he knew the level it had hit Veronica and Logan and Duncan, but they’d been close, the rest of them had been like locusts swarming with greed over the angst and grief and drama of a national scandal. He hadn’t had much time for Lilly and he’d never had much time for her little shadow either.

It hadn’t bothered him, much beyond a disapproving frown here or there, when they’d started to turn on Veronica. He hadn’t understood it, but he hadn’t been bothered to fight it, either. He’d seen her around at parties and on Lilly’s arm and trailing behind Duncan Kane and she hadn’t made much of an impression then.

During his senior year, though, Casey had changed his mind. He’d been confused and groundless and, he smiled to think of it now, rebellious. The collective had been nothing short of his own stand against his parents. He’d known it wouldn’t amount to anything, all he’d had to do would have been to pout and say sorry and he’d have a new car by the end of the week. It was something silly to scare them.

The thing he hadn’t counted on, however, was that the people at the collective had been sweet and sincere and honest in ways he hadn’t ever really experienced. And, much to his surprise, Veronica fit into this category. He’d played at cooking and cleaning and productivity as if it were a novelty, she’d done it without thinking, as if shucking corn was nothing, just something to do.

It was almost embarrassing to think how much one girl had captured his attention, how much he’d started to take notice. He, Casey Gant, serial flirt, had grown shy and nervous around her. They’d talked around the fire and joked and she’d supported him when his grandmother had died and he hadn’t once, really, believed all the things they’d used to say. He had, after all, been part of the clique and knew the viciousness to which they’d go.

Then his parents had grown pro-active and taken him back and he hadn’t had much time to think about her, just a memory as he convinced the deprogrammer he wasn’t about to sell everyone out for peace, love and mungbeans. It was his senior year and he’d had some catching up to do in his classes before college and when he’d finally had time to seriously think about her, she’d been sucking face with Logan Echolls.

It wasn’t even that he was enamored with her, so much as it was he began to think of her as _the one that got away_ and he wasn’t used to any girls getting away if he made up his mind to get to know them better.

He’d kept up to date with vague knowledge of her, courtesy of Dick’s love of gossip, it was all a matter of sifting through the _psycho bitch_ and _tramp_ and _got Logan’s sac in a vice grip_ language. He’d managed to garner little kernels, such as she was back with Duncan Kane and then had used some sort of super secret spy gadget to smuggle him and his miraculous fetus still in the coma womb across twenty international borders under the sniper fire of covert FBI and Interpol agents. Or something. Dick was prone to exaggeration sometimes. And, yes, he’d had to sift through a lot of unwanted information as well, Casey had no idea why he would ever need to know Madison Sinclair took cooking classes or what she was doing to the lamb, but he learned to tune most of it out.

When he’d heard that she was back with Logan Echolls, like some sort of tragic 09er yo yo, Casey had figured enough was enough and he’d forgotten all about the little blonde detective girl that had captured his interest. He’d had plenty of attention from the girls at Stanford and he’d never been really shy of using his charm to his advantage. Some of them were blonde, some of them weren’t, and some of them became blonde when he closed his eyes, but the fantasy drifted and blurred and soon swapped in his rotation for something and someone else.

Until the end of the year, when Dick had emailed him.

It was like a little slap in the face. If by ‘face’ he meant somewhere much further south. At first he’d been outraged, a burst of blurry unfocused anger that someone had done that to a girl he remembered as kind and truthful and a little bit sweet. The second, and third and fourth, viewings had been tempered with a little more interest, comparisons to what he’d known, what he’d imagined since and what was actually there.

Her hair had grown and she’d moved with a grace missing from the sharp, defensive girl from the commune, it looked like she’d finally grown comfortable in her skin and her voice as she joked and murmured huskily had just about done him in.

The file had been stored on his computer and he often found himself humming Status Quo at odd hours of the day, in class, walking through campus, out at the bar with his friends, and before he knew it his brain was focused back on _the one that got away_. He imagined it was him underneath her, automatically ticking A-B-C on his multiple choice exam while his brain tripped on the lyrics _my angel is a centerfold_.

Then came the news that his mother was terminal, they hadn’t told him while classes were on, when exams were looming, they didn’t want to bother him, but it was perfectly appropriate for a congratulatory dinner at the start of the following year. He’d been distracted when he’d asked Dick about housing in Neptune and had missed the suggestion of finding a house together, he hadn’t known what he’d been nodding at until, two weeks later, Dick had called him with the tragic news he had to back out of the deal.

The relief Casey had felt had been brief, outshone moments later when Dick promised to seal the deal he’d been making for him to move in with Logan and Veronica. He hadn’t bothered arguing after that.

Maybe he should have, he thought as he watched her pipe icing onto a batch of cookies, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. She wore boxer shorts and a loose button up shirt; her legs were lightly tanned, paling after a summer in the sun, small tendrils of hair curled at the nape of her neck and he wanted to tease the small stripe of skin showing at her waist.

He’d moved in with great plans: seduce the girl, win her over, it hadn’t been hard for him in the past and there’d been no reason it should have been hard for him then. News suggested she was single again with no real prospective partners on the horizon. It hadn’t taken him long to discover otherwise.

While she was single, she was hardly what he would have called available. There was a ton of baggage and a certain resistance that he felt intensely, so he played around the issue, joked with her, eased into her comfort zone instead. For her part, Veronica had been easy friends with him, picking up where they’d left off his senior year, and it had taken several months after that for her to trust him further.

Logan, on the other hand, had been a tougher sell. He hadn’t expected the fierce protective and defensive streak in the boy when it came to Veronica. The intensity with which Logan had resented the laughter and horseplay Casey had initially shared with her had shocked him. He’d known they’d gone out, once in their junior year of high school and for quite a long time the year previously, but from his memories, Logan had always been a bit blasé about his girlfriends and had an especially bitter streak when it came to Veronica.

Months of conversation, gleaned from outside friends and also from Veronica herself, had put the pieces into place. It was more than just dating for the two of them and the extremity of their shared experiences made for strong feelings on both sides. He saw first hand the volatility of them together, just as housemates and could only imagine them as a couple.

It had come to a head several months after he moved in, when Veronica had been visiting her father for the weekend and Logan had cornered him. There’d been a quiet, tense little standoff where Logan had raised his hackles and tried to warn him off, but Casey had known Logan since he was a skinny twelve year old with knobbly knees and refused to be intimidated. Casey had told him outright that if and when the time came that he made Veronica cry half as much as Logan ever had, then he wouldn’t fight back if Logan wanted a go, but until then she was a grown woman able to make her own choices and as far as he could see it the ‘just friends’ label ruled out proprietary behavior. If Logan wanted to make a move, he should, but if not he should let her decide for herself.

They got along famously in front of Veronica and, after months had passed and nothing had come of Casey’s initial attempts, Logan had backed down and settled into an easy, if tense, truce.

The longer he lived with them, the more they amused him and the more he got to know the real Veronica. The hazy memory of her from years ago blurred with the imagined creature of his time in Stanford and they both floated away as he replaced it all with reality.

The longer he lived with her, the less she became _the one that got away_ and the more she became _the one he’d been warned against_ and _temptation_ and _she who remained immune_.

It wasn’t a constant thing. He had dates and female companionship and sometimes he forgot about it entirely when they made sickly sweet desserts for dinner and watched movies and folded laundry laughing about inane things he couldn’t remember afterwards.

But other times, it hit him just how beautiful she was, how much he actually wanted to kiss her. It was in the way she’d hold her head or the curve of her shoulders or the way she yelled and got angry or the soft sweet voice she used to coo to her dog.

It was in the inevitable times that housemates have, accidental door openings and morning walk ins, the way he’d grind his teeth one night when she’d actually gone on a date – the one time he’d agreed with Logan and they’d waited up tense all night playing poker until she’d gotten home. It was in that day towards the end of her sophomore year when she’d been tense and taut and frustrated and a near horror to live with as she waited for the FBI to call.

The phone had rung one morning and, before either he or Logan had managed look up from their cereal, an hysterical wet streak flew across the kitchen wrapped in a flimsy towel screaming ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ He’d looked, of course he’d looked, and he’d caught Logan doing the same thing.

She’d shared a lot with him over the course of one and a half years, fleshing herself out from one dimension to three, they’d covered a lot of the ground he doubted she covered easily or with a lot of people and he, in turn, told her the seamy underbelly of his own family. He doubted it was a fair trade.

She’d been there for him when his mother had died. As much as he’d resented his parents for what they’d done to him and his grandmother, he’d always loved them and it had hurt. Veronica had sat with him and talked and let him cry without belittling him for it and baked him cookies and fussed. Casey had, he’d reflected, always been drawn to women with strong nurturing instincts.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t bother beating around the bush, launching straight into the topic at hand. She jumped at the sound of his voice; apparently she hadn’t heard him over the music in her ears.

“Wrong?” Straightening up and turning around, she brushed a wisp of hair behind her ear and plucked out the buds. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He chuckled softly and gestured towards the bench.

“It’s ten at night, Veronica, nobody sane bakes that late.”

She smiled, the small, guilty little smile of someone who knew they were caught.

“Wallace has a game tomorrow.” She sounded perky. “He needs some spirit.”

Casey shook his head. Veronica breathed in and picked one up to show him. A tree, half edged with green piping.

“They’re Christmas cookies.” She tried again. “It’s nearly Christmas, I thought I’d get a head start…”

He took a step closer and she blushed, her hand shaking a little as she dropped the cookie back on the tray.

“Christmas is three weeks away.” There was some sadistic part of him that liked teasing her like this, that liked pushing her beyond her comfort zone. “You only bake when you’re avoiding something.”

The sound that met his statement was a combination exhalation and dismissal as she turned back to the counter, grabbing an oven mitt and reaching for the oven door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She was a private person by nature, this he knew, and she often built unnecessary barriers. And when someone tried to call her bluff, she grew nervous and twitchy and evasive, her eyes widening into what he liked to call her Bambi stare. She’d gotten away with too much for too long, all charm and smile and little girl wiles, and the head tilt was nothing more than proof of that fact.

Sometimes he liked to tally points, five for blushing or eye evasiveness, ten for nervous twitches, fifteen if she surreptitiously checked her phone, fifty if she stuttered and, on one glorious occasion, a hundred for her just walking out of the room without speaking another word.

Sadism was a valid form of amusement, he was fairly sure.

“A girl is allowed to…” Her defense was cut off in a loud yelp and clatter of the tray hitting the floor, followed by a deep yowl and a hissed breath. “Motherfu…!”

He didn’t think about it, really, taking those last few steps and grabbing the hand she cradled to her chest, pulling her by the arm to the sink where he ran cold water and shoved her entire curled fist under the stream.

It wasn’t until the tension began to leave her that he noticed their position.

She was facing the sink and he was pushing her into it, reaching around her with both of his arms to cradle hers under the water. They were both bent slightly at the hips.

“You… uh…” His throat cracked a little. “You okay?”

Her head bobbed up and down slowly, her bottom lip pouching out.

“Mm hmm.” Her fingers curled into an even tighter fist inside his under the water and he could see bright pink skin. She turned the nodding to shaking. “No. It stings a little.”

“Here. Let me.”

Her arm was pliant in his as he brought her hand up towards his face with his left and he could feel the moment she stopped breathing as he pursed his lips and blew lightly on the burn. He could feel the heat of her cheek next to his and his right arm was still draped around her waist.

“Casey…”

He supposed it was a protest, an automatic little denial, and he turned his chin towards her, felt his skin scrape against hers. She shivered.

“That better?”

Her mouth opened and he could see her tongue resting on the edge of her teeth, he felt her shoulders sag into him, relax back against him. She looked to the left, to a closed grey door.

“He’s not in Mexico with Dick.” She admitted softly. “Dick called to ask him to go surfing.”

He followed her gaze towards the door and then turned back, directed his words directly at her ear, could feel the soft little tufts of peach fuzz around her lobe rustle in the wake of it.

“You don’t owe him anything, Veronica.”

She closed in on herself, a blink of breath in and out, and then she unfurled, arching her back and neck so that she could reach her chin around further and she was kissing him as her free hand rose up and cupped the side of his face, pulling him forward to her.

It was fast and hard and he slipped his fingers from hers and slid them down her arm to her waist until he held her there, both hands sitting in the top curve of her hips and she had to feel it, there was no mistaking the hardness nestling in against her ass. He broke from her mouth, sucking at the corners of her lips and making her gasp as he attacked the side of her jaw and neck, hungrily sucking the skin there.

She squirmed against him, rippled, tried to adjust to a more comfortable position and he groaned with the movement, bent his knees and crouched slightly to level the playing field. With every second, she grew more confident, let herself relax a little more as she reached out to him.

Suddenly she spun in his hands, turned to face him and then she was kissing him head on. He slid his hands up the sides of her ribs as his tongue pushed into her mouth. The span of her torso fit easily within his hands and his fingertips cupped the back of her shoulder blades while his thumbs edged the sides of her breasts.

They grappled against each other, trying to reach something and he wasn’t sure what as her hands rose over his shoulders and around his neck, as his hands rubbed a pattern of heat up and down the sides of her breasts, as he stepped forward and ground his hips into hers.

She was responsive, all throaty sounds and trembles and rippling muscles and he liked it.

“Wait.” She gasped it, pulling her face back from his mouth. “We shouldn’t… I’m not…”

The top button of her shirt bounced back and forth against the pads of his thumb and forefinger.

“Not what?”

He whispered the question into her jaw line.

“Ready...” Came the rushed groan, an interruption, a rationalization. “To start… A relationship… Not now…”

He blinked and hid the chuckle into the side of her neck as his thumb deftly flicked her button open.

“I’m not proposing, Veronica, jesus.” Soft flesh rounded out the tops of her breast and he looked down at it, wanted to lean down and suck it all into one big globe inside his mouth. “We’re just… letting off steam.”

The corners of her eyes narrowed in thought, but he could tell by her fully dilated pupils and hands that wouldn’t let go and body that pushed into his that the decision had already been made.

“Casey Gant!” She laughed, a little nervously. “Are you suggesting a night of casual sex?”

“You can keep baking if you like.”

She laughed at him, an amused sound as she drew him back by fingers twisting into his shirt, kissed his mouth and jaw and neck. Her sudden eagerness spurred him on and he pushed her shirt from her shoulders, spread the material over the hollows of her clavicle and down her arms. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

He grabbed her hips and spun her around to a bench free of trays and cookies and piping bags, lifted her up and she gave a murmur of surprise as she scrambled to adjust, climbed the outside of his thighs with her legs.

The planes of her abdomen rippled under his hands and he tickled her navel with his thumb. Her laugh came as an exhalation of air against his neck and he reacted by opening his mouth on the tendon that jutted out just below her ear.

She gasped out loud and he slid his hands around her back and pulled her flush against him, pushed in deep between her legs. Her body jolted and a figure ran through his head. It had been two years since she’d had any kind of serious sexual activity, her little broadcast with that Piz guy notwithstanding, and she had never, as far as he knew, had a casual affair.

It had been months for him.

His shirt bunched up around his armpits and he raised his arms, let her lift it off him and groaned at the feel of her fingertips running grooves down his arms, from his wrists to his armpits, fleeting over the ticklish spots and digging again into his chest. Her nails grazed his nipples and he felt it in little sizzling currents all the way to his cock.

He wanted to push her down and fuck her hard and instead he slid his hands up the knobs of her spine, teasing her with direction as he felt the anticipation in her tautness, the knowledge of his intended path. Her nipples were already hard; he could feel them tighten against his chest, little hard rocks that she unconsciously rubbed against him.

She was in nothing but her boxer shorts, breathing in short rapid gasps as she dug her finger tips into his skin, and he thrust his tongue hard and deep into her mouth, running his hands around to finally cup her breasts, his thumbs flicking over her nipples and making her moan around his tongue.

Breasts were his thing and he was never ashamed to admit it. He could spend his entire time there, fondling them, cupping them, squeezing, weighing, biting, sucking, licking. Annie had teased him about it all the time, but she hadn’t really complained and he’d been able to make her come without either of them taking off their pants.

Veronica, though, was different. As much as she was jutting her chest forward, thrusting her breasts into him, the appreciation she keened from the back of her throat, he could feel her urgency rippling through her, could feel it pushing her forward, could feel her pushing him.

She could be the downfall of many a man, he was sure.

His back arched and he could feel his shoulders blades stretching and separating, pulling at the muscles as he dipped his neck down, closed his mouth over the heated skin of her chest, tongued at the salty flesh of her upper breasts, and his hands fell down to the outsides of her thighs.

Shaking, rough, urgent hands tangled in his hair as she let her head fall backward, opened up her throat to him. He could feel the tension in her thighs, pictured the muscles contracting and releasing under his touch, all the way down her calves to the curling of her toes.

His thumbs brushed over and around to the inside, up, and his palms flattened over the top, gripping her thighs. She groaned at the gentle grip, release, grip stroke he began, a rhythmic palpation.

“Casey.” The whispered moan came from above, somewhere to the left of his ear. “Don’t tease.”

He grinned.

“Your call.”

And then he surged upwards, kissed her hard on the mouth as he cupped her through her boxer shorts, pressing firmly and waiting. Her thighs opened more, stretched, and she rocked slightly, forced his movement. It took seconds for his thumb to inch in under the hem of the shorts and the cotton of her underwear.

Then, as the ridges of his tongue slid across the grooves of hers, taste buds rasping in sucking motion, his fingers slid in through her folds, separated the flesh, urged into the wet slick heat and she gulped into his mouth. Her need oozed out over his knuckles and he teased her, ran his finger up and back down the outside, spreading her near cum until they could both hear the sounds of it.

His fingers slipped in easily, fore and middle, up into silky wet warmth that grabbed him, gripped him and he stroked the muscles there, even as his free hand wrapped around the small of her back and balanced her as he leaned her backwards.

She teetered, her neck straining with the position until she let him go and leaned in back against her elbows, opening up her entire body to him as he leaned down and began to really lave kisses over her breasts. His whole body moved in syncopated rhythm, neck and shoulders and elbow doing the major body work, back and forth, while mouth and tongue and teeth and fingers made up the finer strings, pulled and stroked and licked.

Her nipples gorged into his mouth, sat heavy on his tongue and her hips thrust up, opening her pussy wider in the tight confines of her shorts.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

The litany began breathy and shallow and became faster and faster as she keened, as she thrust up in time with him, her knees falling open and her shoulders falling back.

She came hard with a flick of his thumb over her swollen clit.

“Jesus.” She gasped it, her head falling back onto the counter. “That was quick.”

He smiled as he slid his hand out of her shorts, kissing up from her breasts to her neck and chin.

“Seems we were both eager.”

She leaned up on her elbows again, the effort of forcing her fluid heavy limbs obvious.

“Were?”

His smile turned into a laugh.

“Oh, don’t worry, I still am.” At her answering chuckle he pushed himself backwards and broke contact. “Why don’t we go to my room and slip into something more comfortable?”

Her body moved slowly as she edged herself off the counter, the little pillows of her bare toes hitting the floor softly, followed by the slow release of the arches of her feet and the dropping of her heels.

“Comfortable?”

He watched her shake her head dazedly for a second, all languor and grace and post orgasmic fugue and then made his face mock serious as he explained.

“My bed. As opposed to the kitchen bench?”

She looked, for the very briefest moment, as if she were reconsidering the whole thing, and then she nodded with a slightly embarrassed, slow growing smile and swiveled around his torso to pick her shirt up off the other bench.

“Sounds good to me.”

The line of her vertebrae winked at him, contracting and releasing as she walked away and he stood still for several seconds just watching it, the soft curls that danced over her shoulder, the dimples over her kidneys and the rounded swell of her ass hinting out the top of her shorts.

“Be there in a minute!”

He tried to sound casual; the complete opposite to the tense anticipation coursing through his blood and when she turned the corner of the hall, he flew into action. The tray had cooled considerably in the minutes it had been left on the floor, surrounded by broken and scattered cookies. He flicked the oven knob to off and tossed most of the cookies back on the tray, throwing it on the bench. She liked to pretend indifference, but he’d be damned if he let his one chance with her be spoiled because she was distracted over a stupid mess in the kitchen.

Of course, he left a few cookie shapes on the floor as a thank you to Backup for not interrupting them and then tried not to break into an outright run as he headed to his room.

She looked out of place, uncertain, standing amid the casual mess of his inner sanctum. The grace of her previous climax gone as her shoulders sat tense and she stood just inside the door looking around. Her shirt hung limp and forgotten in her hands and she was biting her lip.

“You’ve been in here before.”

He spoke gently and she turned to him in surprise.

“Yeah, but not…” She shrugged. “Not like…”

Her nerves radiated in the fidgeting of her fingers, the rapid movements of her eyes, the way she couldn’t settle on any one object, flicking from his bookshelf to his chair to his laptop, anywhere but the bed. Casey walked to his dresser and pulled out the box of condoms from the sock drawer. He saw the sly curve of her lip as she watched him.

“Relax.” He told her, voice smooth and practiced. “It’s all casual, remember?”

She nodded and didn’t really resist when he reached a hand around her waist to pull her in. He kissed her again and she began to respond, slowly at first, but with an ever-increasing need. Her hands covered his shoulders, ran over the lines of his collarbones and down his arms, around his wrists to the flanks of his hips.

She hadn’t been entirely right; she had been in his room like this many times before, in every way he could imagine. There’d been a lot of fantasies over the past year of living with her. He’d thought about going down on her, legs spread and hands grasping the sheets as he licked long stripes of his tongue flat on her clit, of her going down on him with her hair brushed over one shoulder and her eyes staring straight into his as her cheeks hollowed out, her under him, over him, riding him in a reverse cowgirl, him taking her from behind.

He wanted to make a dent on that list, wanted to take his time and start slowly, build and stoke the fire until they were both exhausted from the mere foreplay alone, until the sex was just the end and not the purpose.

But, as her fingers fumbled with his buckle, he felt his hips jerk forward and her legs bent one at a time at the knees as he tugged her shorts down, he knew neither of them would have the patience for it. Not then. He hoped there would be time for it later, that there would be several chances for him to lay her down and map out her body with his fingertips.

It crested like a dance of desperation, building steadily as he guided her to the bed and pushed her down, covered her face and neck with open mouthed sucking kisses as his hands traveled lower and his cock jumped in agonized expectation at the friction of her thigh.

Her fingers closed in behind his ears, grabbing hold of his head and pulling it into her neck as her body rippled and undulated under him, chest heaving and hip thrusting and her thighs rode his, fashioned a moist, hot friction that created a film of sweat on her stomach.

With each jerk forward, humping against each other like teenagers, his aim became a little more focused and he could feel the tip of his penis seek out the nest of her pubic hair, the hot flesh underneath, and her answering groans of frustration were enough.

The condom rolled on awkwardly as he reached between their bodies, holding himself up with his knees resting between her thighs and his head on the pillow beside her face. She turned and suckled a line down his neck and he closed his eyes to get control of himself.

He could feel her fingertips like ten pointed pressure points on the backs of his shoulders, her hands splayed on his scapula and digging hard as he pushed in. His neck undulated, stretching out with six little creaking pops that radiated into the back of his brain as hips dipped.

His elbows shook with the effort of holding him up, delicious weight as the tip of her hard peaked nipples brushed tantalizing against the wiry hairs of his chest. One, two, slow and deep he thrust into her, one two and then faster, a building rhythm that expanded, compounded, sped up to the soft little breathy groans she gave.

_God_ and _Oh God_ and _Yes_ her voice and his gasped in his ear.

All of it coalesced, shrunk down into one little point, like the absurd droplet of sweat he could feel roll over his ass and to the back of his thigh, hot and wet and clammy and fast and it roiled inside him, turned and quivered and shifted into a sudden tightening in his balls.

“Fuck, Veronica.”

And he pumped hard, harder, faster and faster and she gave back, thrusting up to meet him with an eagerness and urgency that had threaded through the entire situation so far. He reached between them with his right hand, balancing precariously on his left, and flicked her clit again, swiped it and captured it between the fleshy pads of his thumb and forefinger.

With a small, gentle twist, she came, clenching hard around him, mouth opening wide against his ear, breath stolen sharply, and he groaned as he followed, burying his face deep into her neck.

She lay back limply, a little stilted and unsure and accepted the blanket edge he offered gratefully, pulling the hem up to her chest and curling into the warmth comfortably with a dreamy look on her face. He rolled away and sat up, carefully easing the soggy plastic off.

“I can’t remember why I stopped doing that.” She sighed into his pillow. “You know, that wasn’t half bad, Gant.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, felt the welcome stretch in his tendon, and smiled at her happy expression.

“Only half? Damn.” It was a sad little shrug as he eased himself under the cover with her. “I knew I shouldn’t have deleted that email offering me half price viagra.”

Her giggle was stifled quickly, but not totally.

The rise of her shoulder was warm as he traced it with his finger, a soft subtle brown, the tender suggestion of a tan over pale skin, incidental time in the sun. _Clavicle_. His fingernail traced a line down the midpoint of her chest. _Sternum_ and he felt it rise and fall with her breath. _Manubrium_. She didn’t ask as he continued his path, back up to her collarbones and over her shoulders, feeling the line of bone and muscle and tendon.

“Do you hear me complaining?”

He chuckled.

“After that dry spell, Veronica, I wouldn’t expect you to complain about a misplaced seam in your jeans.”

She swatted at him half-heartedly.

Her jaw structure was beautifully defined as he traced the underside of it from her chin to her ear, she angled her face to the wall away from him and gave him access to the side of her head, the base of her skull.

“How long were you with her?”

Casey sighed.

“Six months.”

Two years before, Annie had been studying acupuncture therapy and they’d lain in bed together after making love, studying for her anatomy and physiology exams by finding and repeating all the body parts on each other’s naked forms.

She’d gotten a hundred percent on the reproductive system and he’d joked that she could be the world’s first gynecological acupuncturist. She responded by offering to use him as her base model and laughed when he’d crossed his legs.

“Do you miss her?”

He didn’t sigh, didn’t really respond for several seconds before continuing his pathway from the base of her skull, imagining the atlas and axis underneath, to the small knobs of lower cervical spine that could be felt.

“No.” He said eventually. “No more than… expected.”

The air between them grew a little awkward as he tried to bite back the original thought and she tried to ignore it completely. No more than exes should, no more than normal people, nowhere near as much as you and Logan.

She rolled onto her side, facing away from him, and he looked down her naked spine to the bulbous curves of her ass.

If the line of her jaw was beautiful, the expanse of her back was exquisite.

Words ran through his head, trapezius and latissimus dorsi and deltoid and erector spinae and his fingers traced each muscle group as he did so, starting at the top and winding down, criss-crossing the striations, feeling the soft shudder of her muscles underneath his ministrations.

And his favorite, always his favorite, the cauda equina, his brain looped over the words, the hard raising curve of her tailbone at the base of her spine. Horse’s tail, the flaring of spinal nerves leaving the spinal cord and spreading out to reach legs and kidneys and other places unknown to him.

He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck, nipped at the tendon that pulsed there as the knuckle of his forefinger tickled the sensitive skin, teased it.

“Sorry.” He whispered. “Let’s just forget them, both of them.”

“Mmm.” She hummed her approval deep in her throat. “Sounds good.”

He wasn’t fooled, but he didn’t push the issue, preferring instead to suckle her neck further, making her squirm against him as he pressed his body flush against her from behind. His hand came up to rest on her hip before beginning a slow stroking pattern, creating circles of warmth over her side.

The narrow depression of her waist and the front of her hips were deep hollows that he slid into, riding the rise and fall of flesh and bone, and he grew hard again, feeling her against him, listening to her moan under his mouth, and feeling the bobble of her throat.

She reached back and grasped his head through his hair, stretched his scalp in a deeply satisfying way as she held him to her, pulled, reached for something

He used his free hand to fumble for another condom, slipping it on quickly and surely.

They both let out groans when he slid all the way in, hers a soft succulent little sigh and his a deep approval. His hips began a slower rhythm than before, steadier, controlled, a contrast to the fast desperate race he began with. Slow and shallow, slow and shallow, he felt every molecule of flesh against flesh, then deep and hard, three quick bursting strokes, before maintaining the steady beat.

She was still wet and friction sensitive from her earlier orgasms and she came quick and hard, clenching tightly around him, her back arching and her hips thrusting back, his name falling from her lips.

He bit her shoulder, teeth holding gently onto the skin that pulled up between them, tasting the salt and sweat as he closed his eyes. His left thigh pressed into the mattress, flattened and weighted and trapped and he pushed it to keep up, feeling the ache wrap around his hip.

Harder and harder, his fingers gripped her hips and rocked her in time with her thrusts, the front of his belly slapped into her rump and he released the pocket of skin from his teeth and sealed his mouth over her neck and sucked.

“Veronica.”

It was said as a plea and she understood, reaching back to stroke his ear for a second before rolling forward, bringing him with her.

Blood flowed back into his leg, rushed there in a burst of pins and needles and energy and his arms held him up, hands buried in the sheet next to her shoulders, his knees planted between hers. He buried his head between her shoulder blades and thrust faster and stronger.

He looked all the way down her spine, to the small beginning roundness of her backside and thought _Cauda Equina_ and came.

Ten minutes later he lay on his back, his right arm behind his head as he watched her gather her things.

“Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”

Veronica looked at him with wide, innocent eyes as she pulled her shirt back over her head.

“It’s probably better if… we keep this quiet.”

He was too relaxed and sated to react properly and he couldn’t quite imagine how she had the energy to jump up and move without sleeping for an hour or two.

“Are you saying you’re not going to tattoo ‘Casey Gant was here 2008’ on the inside of your thigh?”

Her laugh was instant and loud.

“Not tonight.” But she became serious too quickly. “It just… it wouldn’t go over well.”

Casey leveled his eyes, watched her quietly as she slipped one foot and then the other through her underwear and dragged it up her legs.

“Are we not telling people in general? Or are we just not telling Logan?”

She flinched, he saw it, she tried to hide it, but it was too late.

“Oh, he’ll know, don’t worry about that.” It came out slightly bitter, probably a little harsher than she wanted it to. “He can always tell when I’ve… he’ll just know. Okay? I just don’t think he’ll react well if he knows…”

“It was me.” He finished for her. “Are we talking about your ex or your psychotic stalker here?”

Her eyes rolled in her sockets, a grand over done gesture, but her features softened.

“It’s not like that, Casey, you know that. Things are just… complicated… between Logan and I.”

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t expected, nothing he hadn’t already told himself would happen, but still the frustration built up inside his chest, curled into his fingers.

“He doesn’t own you, Veronica.” His voice might have held a steel that shouldn’t have been there. “He turned you down, remember?”

He watched her jaw set, stubbornness rising to the fore, as her eyes grew distant.

“As if I could forget.” But she shook off the melancholy before it could even begin. “Look, let’s just keep it between us for now, okay? That’s all.”

She looked at him over her shoulder as she stood at his door.

“Whatever happens, I really needed that. Thank you.”

He gave a cocky grin, for appearance’s sake.

“Anytime, Mars.”

***  


Logan liked alcohol. 

He raised the beer to his lips and took a deep swallow, wishing it was something stronger. It had been a very long few days and he’d waited for tonight, the end of midterm exams, with an eagerness rarely matched in his life anymore. He did a lot of things calmly now; sane was the watchword. 

Truth be told, he honestly was calmer. He’d finally found a place he felt he belonged, with people he called his friends and where he felt comfortable. He owned a house close to the beach, shared it with a beautiful woman and a friend that he considered more of a close friend every day, was taking classes that finally stimulated his interest and felt accomplished in his daily life. 

He’d come close to the rocks more than once in the last few years, teetering dangerously close to following his parents’ footsteps and going out in a blaze of glory. But, he’d decided, he wouldn’t give them that satisfaction. He’d fought to make a success out of himself just to stick it to them, his father mostly, but also his mother if he let himself linger too long in forgotten memories and bitterness. 

He tried not to do that too often anymore. 

Across the table from him, directly in front of him in point of fact, Veronica laughed at something Wallace said. Full throated, energetic, from the heart laughter. His fingers closed around the neck of his beer tightly and he couldn’t stop himself from watching her. 

She looked so god damned happy it hurt him. 

The hardest thing about learning from past mistakes was the lessons he’d kept. He knew too much to keep him completely comfortable. He knew too much, it was the reason the last two days had been pure and utter frustration and torture. 

“Hola Ladies!” Charlie jumped out at the table from somewhere Logan couldn’t even guess at and flopped himself down on a chair on the other side of Wallace, signing the official final exam for the entire group. “Someone buy me a drink! I hate economics!” 

Logan nodded his hello amid the usual chorus of greets and looked back down to his beer. He shouldn’t really look too long at that side of the table: he thought he’d been over most of his self-hating tendencies. The problem with remembering lessons learned was that he knew too much. 

“Oh my god!” Charlie’s strident voice rang out across the table as he turned to stare fully at Veronica. “You got laid!” 

Logan knew too much, too fucking much. 

“I knew it!” Wallace crowed when she didn’t deny it, when her eyes gleamed with guilty pleasure. “I knew you were too happy!” 

“Yes.” She managed to admit and she even gave a guilty little giggle around the word, ducking her head to look at the table. “Yes I did.” 

Wallace covered his ears. 

“I’m not hearing this.” 

Mac reached over the table and slapped Wallace upside his head. 

“Ignore him.” She ordered as she stared Veronica. “Tell us more!” 

With a cautious glance up at him, Veronica couldn’t stop the grin that split her lips, the flush of success and happiness and it ate at Logan, ate at him viciously. 

She’d been different in the last two days and he hated that he knew the signs, had been able to read her the very minute he’d walked in the door Sunday night. It was true, somewhere, somehow while he’d been gone, Veronica had had sex and she’d enjoyed it. 

He’d been the one, once, to make her look like that. To give her that satisfied gleam in her eye, like the cat that ate the canary, to make her hum a distracted little tune while she went about her business, that gave her body that fluid, relaxed, _lived in_ , sated grace. 

It had been him once and it should have been him again, could have been, nearly was him four weeks ago and it was his fault that it wasn’t. He knew it. Knew it with a bitterness that burned. 

The end of freshman year, when she’d told him that she wanted him out of her life for good, his inner dialogue had pretty much begun and ended with _like hell_ , even as he’d been punched in the metaphorical stomach. He’d never had any intention of not being part of her life, one way or another, and he made up his mind not to let her push him away. 

He’d stayed in the background, stayed out of her relationship with Piz, stayed out of her way in general, but he didn’t stop looking out for her and he didn’t stop her knowing it. He’d meet her eyes across the quad and made sure she _knew_ he wasn’t going anywhere. It was like stalking for beginners. 

It hadn’t been hard to see the cracks that she tried to hide. She hid them well, that went without saying, it was just that he knew where and how to look. He followed the strain of her relationship with Keith, he followed the brittleness that was her relationship with Piz, he watched her struggle with her apparent isolation. 

He’d stayed away as much he could, which hadn’t been very much at all in the long run and, slowly, she let him back in. Very slowly. They talked of inconsequential things, light conversations that meant nothing, loaded silences that meant everything, awkward glances across the table over lunch. He hadn’t really cared, as long as they were talking, even as he’d had the sinking suspicion that one of them would end up hurting the other. That’s how they were. That’s how they lived. They were in a very unhealthy co-dependent rut, he was sure of it. 

After two months, Gorya had finally come to follow through on his threat and he and some goons had cornered Logan in the parking garage of the Grand. The blows had come thick and fast and, honestly, he’d been through it all before and it was a sign of his incredibly fucked up life that a going over by the junior section of the Russian mafia really wasn’t anything to blink at. 

But he had been hurt, left slightly incapacitated and wounded and unable to do anything about the dumping site they’d chosen. If he could have changed anything it would have been Veronica finding him practically on her doorstep bloody and bruised and swollen and nursing a couple of broken ribs. Her face had screamed fear and pain and disappointment and a weary _I told you so_ and her voice broke into frightened little pieces of glass as she’d whispered reassurances and she’d tended his wounds. 

She’d promised him she wouldn’t do anything, but he’d known that she’d lied. She’d disappeared for a week, reappearing only now and again to check up on him, fix him meals, and pretend everything was fine. But he knew the tightness in the corners of her eyes, the determination in her face, and he was not surprised when Gorya hadn’t shown up for college classes anymore. 

He’d wanted to yell at her for her foolishness, but he didn’t have the heart, not when she’d been right and she’d warned him off and he’d gone and picked a fight he couldn’t win, even if it was a fight worth losing everything for. He’d taken that bet and he’d lost and Veronica had paid the price again. 

When she and Piz had broken up, he honestly hadn’t been that disappointed. He hadn’t wanted to see her hurt, but he hadn’t really believed that Piz had been a big love in her life, and so he marked the dissolution of the relationship with the knowledge that it was inevitable. 

And he still refused to be pushed away. 

They’d found an easy truce and, he had to admit, he kind of liked being friends with her. It was something they’d never really tried. They’d started out common acquaintances of the Kanes, then the evolution tripped over two quarters of a tight group dynamic, vicious enemies, hidden lovers, bitter exes, reunited lovers in angst and finally wounded exes. 

Simple, friendly, easy, they’d found a common ground to enjoy each other within the safety of limits, no real vulnerability on either side. So what if he’d wanted to reach over the table over lunch one day and take her hand in his and kiss the tender flesh of her wrist until she flushed crimson, if he wanted to turn and push her against the wall with his body one night when they were walking. They were friends. 

An early, aborted attempt at reuniting really hadn’t gone anywhere and Logan hadn’t been too surprised. Things were still too raw and too close for anything to really happen between them and they’d still been rebuilding their lives. So they let it pass and they ignored any residual awkwardness. 

That was how he’d been there, been able to be let back in her life when she’d hit rock bottom. He’d seen it coming, but he hadn’t been prepared for the worst of it. She’d taken it all hard, as if she hadn’t known that her entire life had been dissolving piece by piece for months. As if she’d just woken up one morning and had been surprised to find herself where she was. 

He had been markedly surprised by Keith’s departure and even more so by her choice not to follow her father. Secretly, he’d been glad she’d chosen to stay, for purely selfish reasons. He didn’t want to lose her, even if he knew he’d make weekly, daily, hourly journeys across the state if he needed to, just to see her. Secretly, he’d been glad when it had been difficult for her to find a place to stay. 

He had been incredibly awed by her ability to juggle everything, a job, school, moving, not that he’d ever believe she couldn’t handle something if she put her mind to it, just that it had been a lot for anyone to take in at once. And he had to admit, it was purely selfish reasons that had him packing his bags at the Grand and finally saying goodbye to that hideous fish sculpture on the wall. 

In all honesty, he should have uprooted himself from the hotel long before, but the motivation just hadn’t been there. It had taken a lot of effort on his part to get her to agree to the plan, but in the end she really hadn’t had that many attractive alternatives and they both knew it. 

So they’d gone house hunting and she demurred in all things at first and he’d played make believe, taking her to several prospective places and convincing her to give her honest opinion. He’d truly wanted her to like it, to approve, to _contribute_ to the overall decision. 

And finally they’d found a perfect little house by the beach. Pricey, but well within his budget, and she’d made a big show of paying her fare share with rent and he’d fought her on it and, eventually, they’d come to an agreement. She paid him an amount he felt was out of her price range and more than he wanted to take from her and, in return, he developed lightning quick reflexes when it came to paying the bill anywhere else, paying utility bills, buying groceries and furniture. 

In the spirit of keeping things neutral and keeping themselves sane, they’d both agreed to stay friends and not risk the tentative new happiness they’d found together. They danced around the issue, sometimes pretending they didn’t have such a highly charged history, sometimes flirting with it, sometimes antagonizing each other so much he was surprised they hadn’t killed each other within a week. 

They’d each had a few dates here and there and he supposed hers had been as successful as his. The few he’d taken seriously had been awkward and stilted and he’d never really found anyone that piqued his interest for too long. He’d slept with one or two women, but hadn’t really bothered to stay in touch with them. As far as he could tell, Veronica hadn’t really found anyone worth her time, either, and it really hadn’t been for lack of opportunity. 

Sometimes he wondered if she was truly as unaware of her effect on the male population as she seemed. 

He drank again as he listened to Veronica’s laugh fueled back and forth banter with their friends, drained the bottle and closed his eyes, wished desperately for the magical beer fairy to fill it up. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Mac staring at him with accusing eyes and he knew what the question was. 

“Don’t look over here.” He told her, gesturing towards her with the neck of his empty bottle. “It sure as shit wasn’t with me.” 

It sounded harsher than he’d meant it, bitter and accusing, he saw the answering flush in Veronica’s face and a little of the spark leave her eyes. He hated himself for it. 

He could practically taste her mouth still on his lips and tongue. Four weeks was not long enough to forget, no matter how hard he’d tried and how many girls he’d tried to convince himself with. It had started slowly, a new and different experience for them, their relationship slowly delving a little deeper than anything he’d ever had with anybody else he called strictly a friend. 

They’d come to a point where it had been just ridiculous to pretend it was anything other than rekindling romance and so they’d talked about it and they’d gone over some painful ground. The time apart had given them both some maturity and the ability to talk without accusation or recrimination. It hadn’t been easy, but they’d agreed eventually. 

And it had been wonderful. Brief and transitory, but wonderful. He looked back on that time with the kind of blurry dislocated focus of someone who’d dreamed it, as if that afternoon had been a few minutes stepped inside a chalked square on Mary Poppins. 

He’d kissed her, she’d kissed him and, he hated to be cliché, but kissing Veronica Mars had come to be an addiction to him. He’d returned to it like a reformed smoker tasting cigarettes after years of staying away. Impossible to resist, she’d seeped into his veins and opened up synapses that had been closed. 

They’d been happy, he remembered that, and he’d been giddy like it was fucking Christmas as they’d sat on the sofa together, all kinds of smooshed up, talking, her running her hands over his skin, his arms, twining her fingers into his and out again. 

It had meant a lot to her, he knew it, knew it like fact, as though it was as clear and irrefutable as the sky being blue and the grass being green. Veronica had paid a high price, had made herself vulnerable again, had forgiven him for something she’d previously claimed unforgivable, and he nearly couldn’t believe it. 

He’d buried his face in her neck and breathed the scent of her skin, woodsy and warm after the day, familiar like nothing else he knew, and ran his hands over the bare flesh of her arms and neck and face. Cupped her cheek in his hands and kissed the sides of her mouth and ate at her laughter. 

They’d been happy and he’d been drunk on the possibility. 

They’d both been a little eager, a little too needy, a little too desperate to prove that they would be, could be, should be good together, good for each other, happy. Reunion kisses and happy talk quickly turned into a reunion make out and a reunion grind session and, for once in his brief and stupid life, Logan had decided to be mature and called a halt to the proceedings. 

He’d kissed her softly and told her he hadn’t wanted to rush into anything and he’d wanted to do it right. She nodded and kissed him back and told him in a soft, hazy voice that she wanted them to work, too and then she’d said goodnight and gone to bed and left him alone on the sofa. 

Logan, hard and unsatisfied and too wired for sleep, had made the mistake of turning on the television. 

It was one of those cheap production, flashy effect, d-grade celebrity gossip parading as news late night programs. And it had been doing a special on what they’d subtly dubbed _The Echolls Curse_. The information had been shoddy and ill informed at best, libelous at worst, scandal at its very finest, and he’d nearly wanted to laugh. If the urge to cry hadn’t been so strong. 

The words _Like Father Like Son_ had been displayed in big, gaudy letters as all the mistakes and misdemeanors of his life were splashed across the screen, bum fights and murder trials and several alcohol induced indiscretions. 

He was nothing like Aaron, nothing at all, he told himself. Something he’d said his entire life, something he’d both promised himself and ordered himself. He was not and would never be anything like that man. And yet, the more he thought, the less he’d liked. 

His father had been a manipulator, an abuser, an angry, violent excuse for a man who’d used his size and his power to exert his supposed supremacy over those around him. He’d ended up destroying the woman he’d claimed to love, the one woman he always apologized to later, had used her and broken her and made her into less than a shadow of what she’d once been. 

And Logan… he hated to admit it… Logan was well on the way to being there. He wasn’t physically violent, not towards women and especially never towards Veronica, but emotionally he had never stopped hurting her, even when he hadn’t been trying to. Year after year, he found himself begging for her apology, after he’d broken her down, turned the whole school against her, used her as an outlet for his grief and pain and anger. After he’d been accused of murder and lost control over his own life. When he’d used other women to spite her, Kendall and Hannah and Madison. Fuck, Madison had been the biggest mistake of his life. And yet he still blamed her for getting angry with him, as if he’d had some god given natural right to act the way he did. 

When he’d stopped to add it all up, he’d been struck by the horrid realization that he’d become just like his father. Emotionally abusive, manipulative, and the thing that scared him the most was that there was a little part of him that believed he was still in the right, that he was the wronged party. 

He hadn’t slept, couldn’t sleep, haunted by countless hazy memories of his mother crying and all the ways his father had caused it and the inevitable turning of the tide when Lynn’s emotions had run from love to hate, the bitter resentment she’d held for the man who’d once made her laugh and bought her flowers and diamonds and eight houses along the sea board. 

The showier the gift, the deeper the crime, Logan was born knowing that fact, so deeply was it entrenched into his subconscious and he realized that he did the same thing. Hurt the girl, then try to buy back her forgiveness, whether it be with gifts or with emotional sway. 

The following day, still early enough that Logan could see the sun seeping onto the horizon, blood red and hurtful, Veronica had found him in the kitchen. She’d smiled a dreamy, happy little smile as she’d walked towards him, had reached her arms around his waist as if the past had never happened and all he could see was something he was going to break. 

He’d forced himself to go hard, to turn to stone, and it hadn’t taken her long to realize it. Her expression grew worried as she turned his face to look at her, one hand gently guiding his chin against his will, and her eyes had been scared. 

Not scared, terrified. 

And then she’d bitten her lip as she’d read his eyes, bitten her goddamn fucking lip, trying to stop herself crying as she shook her head. Her voice cracked on her denial, _No_ , _No_. _No! Logan, I’m not letting you…_ , but he hadn’t answered her and she’d broken into tears and then she’d broken a glass in the sink and left and he hadn’t seen her for three days. 

He’d gotten drunk that night, the deep sort of wasted coma drunk that he hadn’t been in over a year. 

Logan swirled his bottle again, checking for the beer fairy. Bitch hadn’t been. 

Mac and Charlie seemed oblivious to him as they pressed her for more details, harping on the subject. His head pounded and he wanted to tell them to shut the hell up. But that was unfair and the joviality of the table shouldn’t be ruined by his fucktastically foul mood. 

“Let it go.” Veronica pleaded, but the words were half hearted and light and everyone could hear the fun underneath them. “It’s not important.” 

Evidently, Mac did not agree. 

“You have to tell us who.” She stated with authority. “At least tell us that much.” 

Logan slammed his empty bottle down on the table, a little harder than he’d meant to. 

“By all means.” He spat, seeing Veronica flinch. “Tell us who the lucky guy is.” 

She faltered, more of her joy falling from her face as she looked to Wallace for help. He could see it, see the wariness in her stance, the guilt and the fear and even the anger. She had every right to be angry, he knew it, and he had no right to be this way. 

“Nobody.” She insisted quietly, softly, focused on her hands folded on the table in front of her. “You don’t know him.” 

He couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or not, couldn’t read the answer either way, and it bugged him. 

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” The chair resisted his efforts to stand and he had to push harder to get it to move, creating a vicious screech of metal on floor. The entire table flinched and he saw Veronica bite her lip again. “Fuck, I need a proper drink.” 

He didn’t wait for the rest, didn’t wait for the recriminations and disapproval from the others and the pity of Veronica, he forced his way through the growing crowd and sat himself down at the bar. Julia turned to him with a smile ready on her face and he didn’t smile back, just slapped a fifty on the bar. 

“Scotch.” Without the usual preamble and pleasantries. “Make it a double.” 

She blinked, cat like green eyes and freckles and a reproachful look, but she scooped up the bill and poured his drink and left him to it. 

He waited, wondered who would be the brave little soldier sent into battle, and didn’t have to wait long. He wasn’t entirely surprised when he saw Wallace glaring at him from the bar stool to his right. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled into the lip of his glass eventually. “I’m fucking sorry, okay?” 

“Yeah.” Wallace nodded. “Yeah, you really kinda are.” 

He and Veronica had had two very distinct, clearly defined sets of friends. His and Hers, like bath towels only with people. But over the past eighteen months, those lines had blurred and distorted and finally just dissolved altogether. 

Wallace had become a good friend, but Logan always knew without a doubt what would happen were it ever to become a choice where Wallace’s loyalties lay. It didn’t bother him, he liked Wallace and, slowly, he sensed Wallace was beginning to like him. He carried a slight trace of the overprotective bitter friend, justified in his anger at past indiscretions; there would always be that slight measure of distrust when it came to Logan. He figured Wallace would always see crowbars and broken headlights before anything else. 

But they had talked and they had shared and even almost sort of bonded over their mutual concern for a stubborn, mule headed blonde and they’d grown comfortable in the small group of friends that all seemed to radiate together on campus. 

To the point where, several months after Casey Gant had moved in and Logan had been looking for someone to, he really didn’t want to say ‘bitch to’, ‘talk in a manly way’ seemed much more appropriate, Wallace had been the one. 

Dick, for all his good points, hadn’t been much help when Logan had voiced his doubts. He’d called Casey a pussy and a fag and had pretty much told Logan that he should just forget Veronica already, leave her to her own life and go shag some chicks. At least, that’s what Logan assumed “shit or get off the pot, already” meant. 

He’d thought, for a very brief transitory second, of taking his fears to Keith, but he figured he wasn’t going to get much sympathy by way of her father. Yes, Logan was sure that it was every father’s nightmare to hear _that handsome, young, polite, incredibly independently wealthy young man seems to be ingraining himself into your daughter’s life, courting her slowly over several months without pushing her into anything._

Out of everyone, it had been Wallace Logan had been able to share his suspicions with. Wallace hadn’t totally trusted Casey, for whatever reason, and he’d been able to share some much needed vitriol. To a point, at least. While there was no love lost between Wallace and Casey, having a slight case of mistrust and ‘there’s something about him I don’t like’ seemed to be trumped whole-heartedly by ‘I once watched you smash in her headlights with a crowbar’. 

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen Veronica with anyone else before. She’d dated Piz for several more months than he particularly thought healthy, had even refrained from killing the guy when the tape had leaked out and when he hadn’t stood up for Veronica the way he should have, but it was somehow different. 

Casey had walked into the house with an assumed relationship with Veronica, all laughter and inside jokes and something about cows and Logan had hated it the very second it had happened. They were too happy and too easy and too comfortable and where the hell was the awkwardness? 

For his part, Casey had never denied any accusation that he was moving in on Veronica, even though she seemed to think it was all innocent banter and friendliness. He’d met each of Logan’s questioning glances with a knowing look, almost like a challenge. Didn’t even have the grace to act innocent when confronted about it. 

He’d calmly pointed out all of Logan’s flaws when it came to Veronica and suggested she was a grown woman who could make up her own mind. Fuck if that didn’t annoy Logan no end. How could he argue with a blunt, open reasoning like that? 

He’d watched the coming months like a hawk, but nothing came of it and he finally relaxed. Casey had turned out to be pretty cool and the three of them together made good housemates. If nothing else, a third person in the house meant an easing on Veronica’s self imposed financial burden. Logan was glad to note, along with Wallace and Keith and Mac, that with the pressure finally off and nothing to prove to the world at large, Veronica eased off a lot of the dangerous work she’d been drawn to before. 

She kept to cheating spouses and long lost brothers and the occasional corporate espionage and everyone else was able to sleep at night. 

“You want a drink?” He gestured roughly towards the bar. “I’m buying.” 

“Let it go, man.” 

Wallace didn’t sound angry and Logan was grateful for it. 

“Got nothing to do with me.” He stated and took a swallow of liquid that burned his throat. “She can do whatever she wants.” 

_Whatever. Whoever._

He wondered who he was trying to convince, it sure as hell wasn’t himself and Wallace didn’t took all that persuaded, either. They were just words and he said them rotely, the right words, the right sentiment, it burned all the way down to his gut. 

“I don’t get it.” Wallace shook his head, wagging his fingers in a subtle denial of the scotch bottle offered by Julia before turning back to him. “You’re a fully fledged dick and, yeah, you’ve had some hard knocks, but you’ve also been given every chance under the sun and you keep fucking up. You step all over people, you use them and you don’t even care.” 

Logan nodded and raised his glass in toast. 

“No arguments there, my friend.” 

“And she still wants you.” The words were said with distaste. “No matter how many times you break her heart she still wants you. I bet if you asked her now, she’d take your skinny white ass back without blinking.” 

He didn’t think it was said as a compliment, but Logan’s throat still contracted at the implication, his heart tightened and he clutched his fingers around his glass, wishing against hope Wallace would just go away. He didn’t want to think about Veronica and how close he’d come to being with her again and how hard it had been to say no. 

“No, I’m not going to go away.” Apparently he’d said it out loud. Huh. “Did you see how happy she was? Did you even look past all this jealous bullshit you’re pulling? Did you?” 

Logan ducked his head and leaned it down towards the bar, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes. 

“If you want her, be a man and do something about it, Echolls.” He heard Wallace’s voice near his ear, steel and anger and purpose. “But if you don’t, let her be happy with someone else.” 

His glass was full again, Julia, his scotch fairy. 

“Because this?” Wallace continued. “This crap? It’s nothing short of abusive.” 

Logan’s head snapped back up and he had to stop himself jumping off the stool. 

“Get the fuck out.” He spat it, ordered it, wished he had the balls and the heart to just lay Wallace flat for the suggestion. “Just get away from me, dude. You have no fucking idea…” 

Wallace just nodded, slowly and calmly, as if he wasn’t intimidated at all by the ruffling of Logan’s feathers. 

“I know enough not to say it lightly, Logan.” 

“Leave. Me. Alone.” 

With a small nod of acknowledgement, perhaps a little warning, Wallace backed away, slipping into the crowd and disappearing from his sight. Logan flipped his black Amex out of his wallet with two fingers. 

“Keep ‘em coming.” He told Julia with an edge to his voice. “And don’t stop ‘til I pass out.” 

That was the last thing he remembered until he woke up in a strange bed, his head pounding and a bad taste in his mouth. An arm was slung over his chest, soft and bare and pale, and a mane of curled brown tresses trailed off into the distance. 

He looked into the sleeping face of Julia, she smelled of cheap perfume and even cheaper sex. 

Logan wanted to throw up. ***


	2. In Sombre Resplendence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their skin together was warm and getting warmer with each stroke of his thumb. Sometimes she was awed by the gentleness he exuded. And sometimes, just sometimes, she was still left breathless and gutted by his words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Naught, really, not even a great deal of sex in this chapter. There’s some angst (ooh, shocker).   
> **Timeline:** Set nearly two years after the finale. Spoils the entire series.   
> **Summary:** The triangle deepens, frustrations heighten, tension mounts…   
> **Disclaimer:** They ain't mine. Though I wouldn't complain if they were.

*~*~*~*

Her eyes were tired when she looked in the mirror. It had been a long night. 

Veronica fingered the chain around her neck. It was silver and weighted, but not heavy. A subtle, simple claw clasped a turquoise blue pendant sphere. She was drawn to the nuances of shading in the orb, her eyes taking in the markings. 

Ostensibly, she’d chosen it to match her dress, elegant and classic and perfect for a reception for the current Mayor’s tenth wedding anniversary. She earned a decent amount of money in freelance photography for a local paper under a pseudonym and they’d sent her on some fairly cushy jobs recently. In reality, she’d chosen the dress to match the necklace. 

It had given her an excuse to wear it. 

“I bought it in August.”

She looked up in the mirror to the eyes burning into hers over her shoulder and said the only thing she could.

“It’s beautiful, Logan.”

He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, leaning casually against the jamb, but she wasn’t fooled. His entire body screamed tension and it called to something in her, something that tightened and tensed and she hated it, hated this newfound awkwardness. 

“Well before you and I… and I just… I wanted you to have it, even after…”

The words hung aborted in the air. 

Beautiful and expensive and strangely intimate, her fingers had itched to tear it from the box and wear it constantly from the moment she’d first seen it, but thick, corded undercurrents stopped her. 

The pretty little box tied with the silver ribbon had sat underneath the tree for several days before she’d slept with Casey, she’d known Logan had meant to give it to her after they’d nearly gotten together again, there hadn’t been any hard feelings. Not really. 

But that was before Casey, before Logan had gotten that look in his eye, that hurt puppy dog expression, and began alternating periods of avoiding her or pushing into her personal space hinting and prying and trying to solve his little mystery of who. 

It would have been too obvious to take the present away and replace it with something else and so it sat, unwrapped and freed in her hands like a squat little accusation on Christmas morning. 

“When I saw it, I knew it was you.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked back at the pendant. Silence choked them both, heavy and pregnant. She didn’t know what he was waiting for her to say, so she said nothing. It seemed the safer option. 

Her fingers shook under his scrutiny and he stepped closer, pushing himself off the wall with his shoulders. 

“You want some help?”

It was a reluctant, slightly hopeful nod and then he was there. The warmth from his body radiated over her skin and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck acutely as he studied the clasp and she held her hair up. She wondered if the tremble she felt was his or hers. 

The silver loosened and slithered down the front of her neck; she caught it with her right hand and draped the chain over her fingers.

“Your present arrived this morning.”

Veronica’s breath caught again and she stilled, just a little reluctant to meet his eyes. She was still unsure of his reaction. 

He’d seemed somewhat deflated two weeks before, on Christmas morning, when all she’d had for him was a pitiful little IOU. There’d been a delay in getting it. And she wondered if he still thought she’d done it on purpose because of the recent events. 

“I hope it’s okay.” She was reduced to second-guessing now, unsure of his reactions and any access she had to them. “I… I wanted to do something… nice.”

The age-old question of what to get a man who could buy himself anything and cared for nothing. 

“Nice.” He parroted, drawing out her tension, teasing her with it before giving a genuine smile. “It was the best present I’ve gotten in a while.”

She breathed easier and turned to face him. 

It would have been easy to just reach out and brush the side of his face, recall the heat of rising color in his cheeks, claim the emotion she’d created. By the stillness in his posture, she could tell he was thinking the same thing. 

Eventually his eyes turned purposeful. Astute. 

“What did you have to do?”

Her eyes slid to the side again and she was sure he’d noticed. 

“Veronica.” He tried again. “I’ve been after them for a while and I know I offered a lot more than you ever could.”

Deflection was key. 

“Can I see them?”

And before he could answer, she’d stepped away from the mirror and pushed her way around him, walking quickly to his room. She knew without thinking that he would have put them there. He wouldn’t have left them out for anyone to see. 

The larger frame sat flat on his bed and an envelope of smaller photographs lay nearby. 

“Oh, Logan.”

Her breath caught again, for an entirely different reason this time. She’d had to okay the proofs, but she hadn’t seen the finished product, not in their entire large, glossy, professionally mounted glory. 

Logan looked to be about four or five years old and Lynn looked younger than Veronica ever remembered her being. It had been some cheesy magazine mother’s day celebrity special photoshoot, long forgotten by everyone. Or nearly everyone. They looked happy. They looked loved. 

For a boy who had no personal ties to his past, good or bad, she knew they would tug at something deep. 

“They’re beautiful.” It came out a little breathy. 

He caught her wrist and spun her to face him. 

“I love them.” It was a statement, non-negotiable and a marked end to that line of conversation. “Now what did you have to give them?”

She sighed. 

“You’ll find out in a few days anyway.” Her whole body seemed to shrink down and she tugged her wrist out of his grasp. “When the next issue goes on sale.”

He blinked, confused, but she knew it was merely an act, a false show of not understanding, because he was afraid he understood all too well. 

She put him out of his misery. 

“I gave them an exclusive.”

The shake of his head was small, but definite. 

“But Veronica Mars doesn’t give interviews. She hasn’t gone on public record for five years.”

There was a rising hint of anger in his voice, fear and distrust, and she wanted to lash out at him for it. 

“That’s what they wanted, okay?” Defensiveness broke over her like a wave. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t speak about you. That was my one condition, nothing about you.”

“Oh, fuck me.” He spat the words out. “I don’t give a…”

The bitterness drained out of him and he half sat, half collapsed on his bed, looking up at her with disappointment. 

“Veronica…” He started and stopped and looked at her, then started again. “You hate the press. You hated the way they treated your dad and Lilly and the whole case. You always said you’d never…”

She sat next to him and took his hand. 

“I did it for you.”

His head bowed down and she watched him watch their hands, fingers against fingers and webbing plastered to webbing. Their skin together was warm and getting warmer with each stroke of his thumb. Sometimes she was awed by the gentleness he exuded. 

“I don’t even know you anymore.”

And sometimes, just sometimes, she was still left breathless and gutted by his words. 

“What…?”

She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he held her close. 

“I miss my mom.” He said it down to their hands as if she hadn’t tried to get away. “And I love those prints. More than you’ll ever know. I love you for getting them, but Veronica… They’re just photos.”

Her mouth ran dry in fear. A slow burning sort of dread. 

“I got them for you.” She insisted, a justification, an explanation, and an accusation, anything to ward off the plummeting feeling she was getting. “I did it for…”

“You didn’t have to sell yourself!”

This time he didn’t resist when she jerked out of his grasp, pulled back and stumbled as she stood up. 

“Oh, fuck you, Logan!” She could feel the tears burn in the corner of her eyes and she hated them, bit her lip to stop them. “You have no idea! None…”

When he did look up his eyes were angry and hurt and her heart sank, because she knew, even before he spoke, she knew. 

“The Veronica I knew never would have done that this last year or the year before and now what? You’re off giving interviews? Sleeping with random guys? What next?”

She shook her head, slow and tired. 

“That’s what this entire thing is about, isn’t it? You’re still hung up on that.”

He stared at her. 

“Why won’t you tell me who?”

She was going to choke on it, just smother in the repetitive absurdness that was this new reality. 

“Does it matter?” Her shoulders slumped, resigned, as she stepped back when he stood up and stepped towards her. “Does it really matter who?”

His gaze was guarded. 

“You seemed to think so.”

It hit her right between the eyes. 

“Don’t you even…!” She wasn’t even upset anymore. She could barely even see, let alone process. “You slept with Madison Sinclair! You…! You…!”

Instantly, as she struggled to breathe past the anger, it seemed to hit him how far he’d gone. 

“Veronica…”

But she couldn’t do it; she couldn’t stand still and let him smooth over the incident with a soft voice and gentle caress of her arm. She flinched away from him and warned him off with a pointed finger. 

“Screw you, Logan. I’m sick of this; I’m just… I can’t do it anymore.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth she realized the truth of them and her breath returned to normal, a preternatural eerie calm oozing out over her entire body. “I forgave you for that a long time ago and now you’re bringing it up to what? Punish me more?”

His entire room seemed to shrink in on her and she felt the four walls intensely, ached to break free and just run. Run, run, run. 

“Wait…” He pleaded, because he knew her and he knew what she was thinking. “Veronica, just wa…”

“No.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Like I said, Logan. I’m sick of this. I can’t do it anymore. I refuse to be punished for a crime I didn’t commit. Not from you. Not again.”

He looked like she’d just slapped him. 

“Yes, I slept with someone. I dared sleep with someone who wasn’t you.” She laid it out bare, in plain, straightforward, painful words. “But we aren’t together, Logan, and that’s all on you. You tried to tell me, back then, you tried. You said it would only hurt more to know the truth. And you were right.”

She shouldn’t have missed the spark of understanding in his eyes, but she was already shaking, too far gone in her anger. 

“You don’t know how many times I wanted to erase the knowledge it was Madison. If I could have just gone back and forgotten… But you were right. Knowing only made it worse. So trust me now, okay? You don’t want to know.”

He stepped back, slowly, absently, and landed softly on the bed. 

“You lied to me.”

She gaped at him. 

“What?”

“You lied to me.” He was calm and stoic and at his most dangerous. “I know him. Don’t I? That’s why you won’t tell me.”

A growl made it out of her throat as her hands came up to clench in hair quickly unraveling from the tight updo that had survived the night. She wanted out. She just wanted out, away from it all, away from him. 

“Maybe I’m not telling you because the last time I even got halfway naked with somebody you nearly put him in the hospital!”

His face turned red, in that all familiar guilty but innocent way it always did when she accused him of anything. 

“That was a mistake!” He shot back. “I thought he hurt you!”

They stood there in the silence, panted angry breaths pulsing in the air between them. 

Veronica sighed. A deep, bone weary sigh. 

“You were right Logan. You and I just can’t do this anymore. We hurt each other too much.” She blinked and took another step back, felt the close frame of the doorway around her shoulders. “I think it’s better if I moved out.”

He was up before she was fully out of his room, hand out and fingers wrapped around her wrist before she could stop him. 

“No, wait.” And he sounded broken and sorry. “Don’t go. Stay… I’ll go. I’ll stay somewhere else for now, until… I’ll go.”

And he did, five minutes later the front door closed behind him with a sorry, sad little click and Veronica sank onto the couch in tears. Large, hopeless, confused tears. 

Twenty minutes later the door opened again and Veronica sniffed in the dark as she listened to footsteps sound down the hall, a door open and close, the sound of a bag hitting the floor. She wiped her eyes with a trembling hand, used the corner of a blanket to scrub at her cheeks. 

She shook her head back and forth and swallowed whatever was left of her tears and then went to knock on his door. He was already halfway through taking off his shirt and she stopped to watch the play of muscles along his back. 

“So?” She asked with a nervous little smile. “Just how casual was this casual you were talking about?”

Casey turned to her with a careful, carefree, unplanned smile. 

Pleased. 

She shut the door behind her with a final little click. 

***

Logan hadn’t meant for things to get that bad. He hadn’t meant for them to get bad at all. All day long he’d thought about Veronica, ever since that morning when he’d opened the package. He’d assumed after Christmas that her present was huge, something to be anticipated, and something unimagined and heartfelt and intimate. 

Any time Veronica put extra effort into something like that, the result usually took his breath away. And this had been no exception. 

He’d mentioned them to her, once, during freshman year of Hearst, shortly after his brief run in with Charlie, the continued bitter half brother who wouldn’t speak to him. 

At first he’d fallen headfirst into an optimistic, dreamy contemplation. Thoughts about Veronica, about the effort she’d spent organizing that for him, that she knew the one thing he wanted and couldn’t get for himself, about the look in her eyes, the appreciation, when she’d first opened his present for her. 

He’d thought, maybe, her tentative olive branch might still be extended, that he might still be able to go to her and ask if they could try again. 

And then, like any good self-fulfilling prophecy, he’d begun asking himself the damaging questions. 

By the time she’d gotten home, he’d been full of a slow building resentment, a burning knowledge. He knew Veronica and she would stop at nothing for the sake of others, going much further than she ever would for herself. It irritated him, sometimes, her martyr act. And, if he hadn’t been able to match the asking price for the photos, how had she?

His necklace had glittered in the hollow of her throat, catching the half-light of the hallway as she brushed past him with a quick, tired greeting. He’d known, in that instant of almost smelling her as he watched the loose tendrils escaping from her hair curl around the intimate nape of her neck, he’d known that she’d created her entire outfit to wear his gift and the knowledge floored him. 

Watching her from the door to the bathroom hadn’t been much of a risk; he was too familiar with her post outing routine to be worried about interrupting anything personal. She’d barely managed to settle in or undo her hair, let alone take off her makeup or start with the clothing. 

He’d wanted, with an urge so strong he could taste it on his tongue, he’d wanted to caress the silver around her neck, feel the warmth of her skin in the metal. 

And somehow, without his permission or planning, the words _You look stunning_ and _I want to make everything alright again_ suddenly became an attack. Unfair, unwarranted and unprovoked, it had been the opposite of what he’d wanted and he couldn’t stop it. 

He’d hurt her, he’d trapped her and, like any trapped animal, she’d had to fight her way out, hurting him back in the process. 

He hadn’t meant to make it sound so harsh, accusing her of selling herself, he’d just been devastated at the thought of her giving up so much for his sake. Then everything had degenerated and she’d brought up her recent fling with the unnamed man and he hadn’t been able to tamp down on the flare of jealousy. 

The very second she’d even suggested moving out Logan had felt his heart lodge in his throat. It wasn’t just a matter of living quarters, he knew it and he was fairly sure she knew it too. Just as it was a year and a half ago, the housing market around Neptune was alienating for a single low budget student with no full paying job and no access to parental funding. 

Her words meant moving back in with her dad. Hours away. Out of his life. 

Title and deed cards meant nothing to him, he considered the beach house half hers in every way that mattered and he didn’t think he could live there without her. 

Three drinks later and he’d had an epiphany. 

A few days, she’d said, but he still had his contacts in the business, even after several years. So, after a few phone calls and a forty-minute drive, he found himself waiting on a stiff, uncomfortable office chair. 

“Here.” A magazine still warm from the printing press skittered across the meeting table. “Hope it was worth it.”

Logan signed the cheque and stood up. 

“Thanks Steve.”

 _Exclusive Veronica Mars Interview!_ The cover promised. _In depth look at the real details behind the upcoming ‘The Aaron Echolls Story’ you won’t find anywhere else!_

Flicking through the glossy pages, he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Surely something as cataclysmic as Veronica speaking to the press deserved a fanfare and respect akin to rain of toads, earth shattering meteors, or Brittany Spears losing custody rights.

The rather unimpressive layout disappointed him with its small stock press picture of teenage Lilly, slightly larger grainy arrest photo of Aaron and a standard plain, completely boring photo of a slightly stiff and uncomfortable looking Veronica. 

She looked dull and normal and not at all the woman he knew. She must have hated sitting for it, he could see the frustration hiding behind her eyes even though she hid it well. They must have had the brains to shoot it before the interview. 

Although the composition of the layout, highly favoring Veronica and not Aaron, seemed to bode well, he was still nervous about reading the body of the text. 

After a brief, introductory paragraph where the barest details reminded the reader of the upcoming release of Trina’s low budget tell all movie, Lilly’s murder, the bungled investigation, Keith Mars’ role, Aaron’s arrest and the sham of a trial that followed, Logan found himself amused at the interviewer’s description of Veronica. 

Obviously she’d charmed him within minutes of meeting the guy. That was his Veronica. 

But not so much that the hard questions hadn’t been asked. He fumed when his eyes skimmed over the mentions of Aaron’s lawyer’s claims of Veronica being a gold digging, power hungry social climber during the trial. 

__

Well, yes, the majority of my serious boyfriends do fit that profile, but the truth is that these were my friends; these were the people I spent all my time with. Of course that’s where I would develop my formative, teenage romances. To suggest that I exist within one sphere of people and then suddenly look across the hall to fall in love with a complete stranger just because we’re more socio-economically suited? That’s preposterous.

She’d told the truth. The article never once mentioned him in detail, barely passing over his name in a cursory way, and it was only obvious to him where the glaring omissions were. She’d glossed over his role in her life effortlessly without making him feel forgotten. 

It surprised him the depth to which she’d opened up, his chest tightening with every word, because there on the page for all to see were paragraphs full of things she had never told him, never shown him, never opened up to him about. 

And suddenly it seemed obtuse, a shocking oversight, that such obvious, grand, significant moments in both their lives remained buried and undiscovered, unchartered territory. His eyes picked out random passages, lingered on them, devoured them hungrily. 

__

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind Aaron Echolls is guilty of the crimes he was accused of, whether he was convicted or not. My father and I almost died at his hands. I have first hand knowledge of how violent he could be when provoked. I know how charming he can appear on screen, but the screen only shows so much. You cannot begin to understand the fear of what he put me through. I had nightmares for a long time after that night. He didn’t just lock me in a fridge and set it on fire, he talked me through it. He made sure I knew exactly what was going ot happen before it did. Someone like that could easily be capable of murder.

No, Lilly was never a bad person. I can see how the bigger picture can paint her as such, but in all honesty, she was a sixteen-year-old girl. She could be spoiled and selfish and self involved, but she was a good person deep down. You have to understand, with Lilly, she was raised in a world without consequence; she was never given the chance to fully understand that her actions had repercussions for those around her. If she had been allowed to grow and mature, I believe she would have realized her mistakes and made movements to atone for them, but she never got that chance. I loved Lilly, for a long time I was mad at her, but I love her still.

The world of the teenaged rich and powerful is a heady one. They have no limits and a freedom the rest of us only dream of. Lilly was only one of many Neptune teenagers who did selfish, cruel, thoughtless things. Many of these people, who during our high school years did things that would seem obscene now, I have watched grow into respectable, honest, caring adults. Some of them I consider my close friends.

The pages crinkled slightly as he half folded, half crumbled them into an easily held bundle and walked steadily to his car. He needed to talk to her, to speak with her, go over everything, to hear it all in her words, her voice. 

Something about it seemed entirely too intimate, as if she’d meant the entire thing just for him. 

He wanted to hear her absolution and beg her forgiveness, yet again, and the drive home seemed twice as long as it should have been, red lights and slow moving traffic and small distractions that seemed nothing more than obstacles deliberately put there to keep him from her. 

He really didn’t think what he was doing by the time he got there. 

He walked into the darkened house softly, opened the door with barely a sound, and later it would occur to him that he’d already brain washed himself into picturing the perfect, domestic scene of tranquility, of it being just another night of him coming home to her. 

A faint, bluish glow radiated from the kitchen and he was drawn to it. His breath caught in his throat the moment he saw her. She was standing in front of the open fridge door, backlit by the fluorescent aura of soda, cheese and softly curdling yogurt. 

An oversized shirt pooled around her body, doing nothing to hide the taut outlines and rounded curves as it hung on the angles of her hips and breasts, the stretched elongated line of her arm holding the door open. Her legs were bare, two supple little lines that dipped in behind her knees, one foot lifted and hooked behind the opposite leg, toes scratching aimlessly at the ankle, lines that rose all the way to the hem of the shirt and the briefest hint of black shaded panties. 

His brain shorted out in a fantasy of walking up behind her, as if it was two years ago and he still had the right, of his arm slipping around her waist to pull her body flush back against his, nuzzling the back of her neck until she moaned, stretched, ground back, turning her around and devouring her neck, sucking that little spot that forced guttural moans from her, sliding his hands up the shirt, over her hips and ribs and the sides of her breasts, pushing his knee between hers and driving her to ride his thigh to a desperate friction. 

A strangled little groan tore from his throat. 

“Logan!” She turned around with a near empty kung pao chicken container seemingly forgotten in one hand and a surprised look on her face. “You’re home!”

It slammed into him sharply. She meant home in the general sense, not home as in _their_ home and this wasn’t an intimate moment between the two of them. He was the outsider, suddenly, and he knew in the frantic, guilty expression she was trying to hide that they weren’t alone. 

“He’s here?” It tightened around his chest like a steel grip. “You brought him here?”

Her eyes flicked to the left, behind him, before returning back. 

“Logan, no…”

And then it all collapsed with the addition of a third, lazy, careless voice. 

“Veronica? I think Logan ate the rest of the Chinese. Why don’t we order some pizza?”

Time halted into slow motion, in the blanking out of her face, the slide of her focus from him to the doorway off in the distance, the shifting of his balance as he turned on his ankles and spun to face the body framed by a rectangle of light. 

“Casey.” Veronica’s voice slammed the timeline back to normal. “No!”

But it was too late; Logan had seen him, a bare-chested traitor standing there in nothing but boxer shorts, a sated look on his face warring with a frown of confusion. He felt it in the throbbing of his eardrums, that explosion of boiling anger. 

“You bastard!”

He didn’t remember striding across the room, but he must have, because suddenly he had Casey doubled over with a swift, brutal hit to the abdomen, had him in a headlock before he started fighting back. It was messy and awkward and there was far too much Casey flesh in the offing for his liking, but he gave more hits than he took. 

“You absolute dick!”

“Stop it!” Veronica’s voice was somewhere off to the side, distant and striding and ineffectual. “Logan, get off him!”

It was the slam of a flat palm into his solar plexus, solid and sudden and definite, that knocked the breath out of Logan. He fell back, gasping, as his eyes rose to look at Casey’s face. He heard the soft little slaps of Veronica’s bare feet on the floorboards running up behind him. 

Casey looked unrepentant and unashamed and just a little bit triumphant. 

“It was you.” Logan hissed, stupidly and thoughtlessly and without care. “You fucking…”

And then he stopped, because it all clicked into place, like the bolts of a lock sliding home. Weeks and months of it, little looks they must have shared over his head. The burning knowledge he hadn’t been part of. Fucking Christmas day when she’d opened that damned necklace and the guilty flush of red over her neck that he hadn’t understood, hadn’t connected the dots because Casey had given her a CD, a plain fucking CD that meant nothing, and it hadn’t occurred to him that her ‘casual’ meant ‘CD for Christmas’ fucking casual and he was an idiot. 

He was a goddamn idiot. 

“Logan, please.”

She looked as brittle as she sounded, shoulders tight and eyes wary, and it occurred to him that it was that exact look of fear and hurt and disappointment that had started this whole thing, his reluctance to cause that look in her was the reason he’d chosen not to be with her. 

The irony of it was gut wrenching. 

“Casey?” It was all he could say, all he trusted himself to say. “I know you needed… and all… but Casey?”

Her nod was minimal and almost non-existent. 

“You were gone. And he was there.”

It all boiled down to those seven words and he felt his hands clench hard. 

She saw it and reached out, the fingers of her right hand curling around the skin above his left elbow. 

“Don’t.” A one word order and plea all rolled together and he wondered how she did that, made her demands softer with just the hint of vulnerability so it made him feel as if he was doing her a favor to obey. “You don’t get to do this.”

Her eyes bored into his, desperate and angry and fearful. Somewhere off to the side he felt a shift in the current of air, his entire body was hyper aware of the third body in the room, the topic of discussion, the lightning rod for the growing explosion. 

“You can’t break us up and then be angry because I’m suddenly sleeping with Casey.”

His breath and fight left him in the exact same second that blood rushed into her cheeks and her eyes widened. They’d both caught it, that one word, said without thought. 

_Sleeping._

Current, ongoing, a little past ‘casual’ and ‘one off’. A series of events. It will happen again. It will keep happening. It’s a plan. 

“I need you to be okay with this.”

And he wanted to howl, because he was not okay with it, not in any sense of the word, and he knew with a concrete certainty that if Casey pushed just one button he would snap and do something awful and horrible and painful. And he almost wanted to, was tempted to goad Casey into it, because thrashing him would improve his day, his week, fuck, his entire year. But he couldn’t say that, couldn’t snap that last, fragile thread of sanity in her eyes right then. 

“I’m not.” He went with the barest, coldest truth. “You lied to me.”

It was a moment of sadism, of cruelty buried deep that he’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t show her again, but it curled up around his chest and tickled his brain to see that flinch, that little sign that he could still cause that in her. 

“But I will be.” He amended, added, gave to her like a shiny wrapped box on Christmas morning. “Eventually.”

And then he walked back to his car, back to the inconsequential early edition interview folded on the front seat, and began to drive.

He didn’t know where. 

***  
***

She was lying on his bed, relaxed and sated and dozy. 

Casey had scooted down until his hip dug into the mattress at her ankles, leaning on his right elbow, his left hand trailed careless spider web patterns on her calf. He leaned forward and kissed the outer edge of her hip, tasted the salt and skin and flicker of her muscles. Aimless, there was no real direction, any destination had already been achieved several times over. 

“Fifteen?” The question came, slightly disbelieving and awed and embarrassed. Veronica rambled when she was nervous and it made him grin against her skin. “I mean, yeah, I know that you… and if you average it out, that’s like… less than three a year… and, yeah, fifteen in comparison isn’t that… but… fifteen?”

He shifted again and kissed a line down the rounded curve of her outer hip to her thigh, taking his time, learning the shape of her as she lay still and pliant. Her skin was beginning to glow again, winter giving way to a spring, and he loved watching the seasons change in her molecules. 

“You’re right.” He agreed with the knob of bone indicating her femur. “I’m a manwhore.”

She chuckled, a tremor riding her hard. 

“No… it’s just…” He could hear the soft pelt of fingers drumming against the sheet. “I have two.”

It was said quickly, rushed, and he could only guess at the level of discomfort she had. Not that the number was an incredibly shocking revelation to him, he knew more about her than she remembered, midnight chats shared over cocoa. The comparison sounded absurd, two to fifteen, and he recognized her vulnerability shining through. 

“Technically.”

Her thigh stretched, undulated, as he lathed his way down to the outside of her knee. Her calf was smooth and silken and his fingers couldn’t stop stroking the skin. 

“Technically?” Her neck stretched as she lifted her head off the pillow to look down at him. “What do you mean, technically?”

“Well.” He paused to properly devour her kneecap, wrapping his fingers around her leg and it pulling it open just that little bit. “There was that Piz guy.”

She scoffed, throwing her head back with a little oomph onto the pillow. 

“And, counting backwards, there was Logan.” He counted the names off with pecks to the inside of her knee, the delicate little creases that caused a hint of a smile to grace her features. “And Duncan, and Logan and Duncan. That counts as, like, five, at least.”

“But Piz and I never…” She let the words hang in the air. “And half of those times with the others we didn’t…”

Sometimes, in the middle of all his fantasies, and when she faced down mobsters and criminals and cheats, it was easy to forget the thread of innocence that lay inherent in her core. She wasn’t much more than a girl, despite her desperation to appear larger than life. 

“Anyone ever tell you it’s the thought that counts?” He challenged her with a swipe of his tongue higher up the inside of her thigh. “And, let me tell you, those guys thought about it.”

He rolled his shoulder over her leg, followed with his torso and hips and legs until he was cradled between her knees and could fully suckle the soft inner flesh towards the heated patch of curls. Her legs fell open even more and she peered down her nose at him, a thoughtful crease between her brows. 

“Then you forgot Leo.” At his confused expression, she relented. “Junior year of high school. He was a cop. I don’t think you ever met him.”

His answer was a low, dramatic whistle. 

“You dated an older man. A cop at that. That has to bump your count up to at least a six.” She was short overall, but her legs seemed long and endless like this, surrounding him. “See? Fifteen to six isn’t that bad.”

Even as he spoke he was trawling his memories of senior year, trying to recall any figure that might have been male and older and a cop. A memory, vague and fuzzy and insubstantial rose up from his brain. 

“Hey.” He whispered it to the juncture of thigh and pubis. “Didn’t you go out with Troy Vandergraff for five minutes?”

The change in atmosphere was palpable; he felt it in the tensing of her muscles under him and the exhalation of her breath in one continuous steam. 

“Yeah.” She admitted, somewhat reluctantly. “My one and only true dating mistake. He was arrogant and a liar and only ever seemed to want in my pants. You know, I think I was more relieved than anything when he left.”

Stopping his ministrations for the moment, he looked up at her. Her face was closed off and her eyes narrowed and he was sorry he’d even bought the subject up. 

“Then why’d you go out with him?”

Veronica sighed, a wistful look coming over her face as she blushed and didn’t meet his eyes anymore. 

“He was nice to me.”

It was singularly the saddest, loneliest little sentence he’d heard in a long time. 

Despite the fact that he was near face down between her legs, he could feel the distance grow between them, felt it in the way she closed herself off, wouldn’t look at him anymore. Injustice surged up from somewhere long forgotten and buried deep. 

He thought about the easy way she’d been joking with him moments ago, the months and years he’d known her. He remembered the angry, defensive, shattered girl with short hair that had forged through the schoolyard on a mission. 

He kissed the bundle of nerves at the top of her thigh, a gesture of comfort and reassurance and understanding. 

“They were horrible to you back then.”

The turning of her head was a slow roll of her neck, until she faced him head on. Her eyes were narrow and pointed. 

“You say ‘they’, Casey, like you weren’t one of them.”

A bulge of instinctive defenses caught in his throat, a cumulative bottle neck of _I never did anything to you_ and _I never said…_ and _It wasn’t me_. He swallowed them, knowing they were unwanted and unasked for and just plain wrong. He had done nothing and the full force of that indifference hit him now. 

A choked, strangled little laugh bubbled up out of her mouth, sounding anything but happy. 

“I wouldn’t worry. I forgave Logan and Duncan easy enough, didn’t I?” There was something in the catch of her voice that frightened him a little and he pushed himself up on one elbow. “Didn’t even ask for an apology. I forgave everyone.”

She sighed and it sounded to Casey more like giving in. 

“Sometimes they make me feel like a doormat. And I don’t do anything to stop them.”

His protest was stopped before it even began by the sound of a loud crashing several rooms away. They both sat up, careless limbs and bodies and nakedness as they turned towards the door. Loud footsteps lurched across the house and several thuds later the sound of crinkling glass. 

“Honey! I’m home!”

“Oh, god.” Veronica brought her limbs in close, flustered and caught and guilty. “He’s drunk.”

Casey no longer felt the need to protest.

He was pushed out and away and he sat back to watch her scramble to get clothes. 

“Anyone home?” Came the loud, insistent, slurred voice. “C’mon! Where’s the happy couple?”

He watched her shoulders drop and a defeated look come over her face. Before she could stand, he stopped her with a hand to her wrist. 

“Let me go.”

She looked for all the world like she was about to protest, but then she sighed again and nodded. He pulled some sweat pants on and kissed the top of her forehead. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t acknowledge him either and Casey didn’t know how to feel about that. 

It had been three weeks since their last confrontation and Logan had been keeping to himself for the most part. The few times they had crossed paths, Logan had been cold and subtly hostile, but brief and hadn’t caused any trouble. From what Veronica had told him, he hadn’t caused her any grief either. 

Until now. 

Casey found him in the kitchen, sitting at the bench with a half empty bottle of wild turkey. 

“Casey!” Logan’s greeting was enthusiastic and warm and put him on edge. “Come have a drink!”

“No thanks, man.” He folded his arms across his torso and leaned against the bench from the opposite side. “And I think you’ve had enough, too.”

A sneer floated messily across Logan’s face, warring with the slackness of the alcohol. 

“Oh, you do, do you?” Logan raised a shot glass, spinning it erratically from side to side. “Well, I’ll tell you…”

“No.” Casey stopped him, voce strong and even and forceful. “I’m telling you. All this bullshit you’re pulling? It stops now. Do you hear me? You leave Veronica alone and stop making her pay for your mistakes.”

They stared at each other, blue eyes boring into red, blood shot unfocused brown ones. 

And then Logan laughed. 

“Look at you!” He paused long enough to take a swallow. “I guess you’re the hero now. Enjoy it while it lasts, Gant. And you know what? I even liked you.”

Logan sniffed and the glass toppled the last quarter of an inch to the bench top, slipped from shaking fingers. 

“I hope she was worth it.”

Against any and all better judgments, Casey took the bait. 

“What’s so funny?”

Logan dissolved into messy giggles, dipping his mouth into the glass, back slumped. 

“You. You and your entire ‘it’s only casual’ spiel.” He hiccupped. “Look around, man, out of all her boyfriends, one skipped the state and the other skipped the fucking country, all to get away. There is no casual with her.”

“You’re still here.”

One red eye rolled up, swiveled over him and back down again. 

“Yeah, but I’m a lifer. I’m too far-gone. There’s no hope for me.” Another hiccup, there was definitely no laughter anymore. “You know what’s good for you, Casey, get the hell out while you still can.”

Frustration boiled up inside him, thick and bitter and futile. 

“I don’t get you, Logan, I really don’t. You claim to love her and yet all you seem to do is try your hardest to hurt her.” He watched as Logan gave a start, a delayed little body jerk of reaction that came in seconds after the words. “You break her heart again and again and she still wants you.”

Something twisted and hurt and broke inside him. 

It felt too much like truth. 

“You’re the luckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever known and you continuously piss it all away.” 

He sighed and felt the overwhelming pressure to just give in.

“Mnonwannooo.” Logan mumbled the words into the bench, nearly doubled over it by this time, and the slur only made it worse until he heaved himself up, his spine uncurling gracelessly upwards and his head following heavily after. “I try, you know? I try.”

The words formed in the air without being spoken, without needing to. _I try. I try not to. Not to hurt her. Not to want her. Not to be hurt by her. I fucking try and I can’t help it._ Casey could see the words as clearly in the slump of Logan’s shoulders and drag of alcohol soaked eyes as he could read the same ones in the skin cells of Veronica’s shoulder and hip and calf and nape. 

_We’re an awful couple._ Her spine had told him, once, shamed and guilty and spilling secrets like water over the floor, words her mouth would never say. _And yet, I can’t help it._

A wet, heavy cough brought Casey back to Logan slouched over his bottle. 

“She’s mine, you know.” The words drifted out, harsh and bitter and unwanted and slightly lost. “And you can’t… just come… I’m hers, too. I can’t go anywhere…”

Casey breathed in and looked at the pathetic form in front of him. 

“You want her, Logan? I can’t stop you. But you damn well better sober yourself up and start acting like something that resembles a human being, because if you keep this bullshit up, then I will do everything I can to get in your way.”

He let the implication of that sink in and turned to look at his closed bedroom door. 

Veronica sat behind it, nervous and tense where moments ago she’d been enjoying the afterglow of some pretty fantastic lovemaking. He thought about the last three weeks, the time he’d spent learning her body, the taste and scent and feel of her. 

He thought about the sound of the little gasp she gave as she came, mouth opening against his ear lobe. 

“You hurt her again, I will take you down, Echolls.”

One last look at the slumped, sloppy creature at the kitchen bench and he tasted salt water oozing out of his canines. 

“Go get some coffee, sober yourself up, make yourself presentable.” His own shoulders sagged. “And just give me this night, okay?”

When he walked back into his room, Veronica was sitting on the edge of the bed, chewing furiously on her fingernail. Her eyes widened when he entered and he saw the million and one questions on the tip of her tongue. 

“It’s cool.” He told her, gently pulling her wrist away from her mouth. “He’s cool for the night.”

He pulled her down onto the bed and under the covers, curled up behind her, and felt somewhat surprised that she allowed it, that she didn’t question him. There would be time enough in the morning for explanations, time enough for Logan to sober up and decide what he was going to do, time enough for him to give up something he never really had in the first place and hadn’t known he wanted until just then. 

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, the old adage came to him that good guys always came last and suddenly he didn’t have the energy to disagree. 

***


	3. Your Sins Into Me (Oh, My Beautiful One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Casey was not stupid._
> 
> _He'd known right from the start that he was never going to be Veronica's Ever After. He was a way station, a resting place, somewhere for her to stop and recharge her batteries after the last destructive relationship. He knew it and, really, he almost welcomed it. Two story suburbans with a Range Rover, white picket fences and the two point five weren't really his cup of tea. He was more of a fling type of man._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Well, holy crap, christ on a cracker, this is done. After a... (*counts fingers... gives up*)... several year gap and claims that this would never be finished, here it is. 
> 
> **A/N:** This is not and never was going to be a happy fic. I realise the contentious nature of the pairings made it impossible to please everyone and so... it ended the way it ended. I make no apologies. You are all free to imagine what happens next, whether you are on Team Logan, Team Casey, or Team "Do Them Both Veronica" Lilly.

***

Casey was not stupid. 

He'd known right from the start that he was never going to be Veronica's Ever After. He was a way station, a resting place, somewhere for her to stop and recharge her batteries after the last destructive relationship. He knew it and, really, he almost welcomed it. Two story suburbans with a Range Rover, white picket fences and the two point five weren't really his cup of tea. He was more of a fling type of man. 

So, in the absence of any other possibility, he was more than willing to be more of a Right Now for her. It suited him perfectly. 

Relationships were not soul shattering, life altering things, they were meant to be fun and carefree, a solace of sorts. He took them where he could get them and enjoyed whatever he could get out of them. Casey had never really felt the need to commit to any one single woman in his life. He'd dated in high school, but in all honesty he'd done that mostly to quell the expectation that came with being rich and male. As college had rolled around, he'd lost all interest in falsifying his life. He'd had girlfriends and had stayed with Annie for six months, but they'd parted ways eventually and he'd mourned the loss of a friendship and then moved on. 

Veronica... 

Veronica was... 

He was not sure how to finish that thought. It wasn't as if sleeping with her had shorted out his brain circuitry or made him re-evaluate his life. She didn't own a magical vagina that made sex with her a life altering experience unlike any other. It was just... the thing with Veronica was unexpected. 

His vague interest in her had multiplied over the years into something he couldn't let go. Casey was used to getting the things that he wanted and the experience of just the opposite was not something he relished. As callous as it made him sound, he was self aware enough to realize that the Veronica of high school would have been nothing more than a fling for him, forgotten in weeks after he'd gone to college. The Veronica he'd moved in with would have been good to finally garner that notch in his belt. 

But it was the Veronica he'd lived with, gotten to know, to appreciate, that he'd actually slept with. And the knowing was somehow worse than the wanting. Waking up with his face buried in the curve of her neck, smelling the overly fruity shampoo he refused to use, feeling the warmth of her skin, knowing and learning all the soft, intimate, private details about her... it was addictive. 

Far from scratching the itch, everything he got from her just made him want more. 

But he was not stupid. He knew, even lying awake at night and watching her sleep sated from their love making, he knew he was not a permanent fixture in her life. All the soft, fuzzy, inarticulate imaginings of waking up next to her for years, spending weekends buried under the covers, winters in Aspen, summers in Hawaii, all of them were useless and pointless dreams. Castles in the wind. He knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. 

When Logan had declared himself, however drunkenly, still very much a key player in the romantic aspects of Veronica's life, Casey had known well enough to step aside. As much as he liked to dream, he would never be as entrenched in her life as Logan Echolls. It had been his gateway into their casual relationship, but it was also his doom. 

He'd asked Logan for the rest of that night and Logan, ever chivalrous, had given him over six weeks. 

They'd woken up the day after, unsuspecting and a little shy, carefully stepping out into the larger house without knowing what awaited them. Logan had been nowhere in sight and Casey and Veronica had gotten showered and dressed and gone to classes without thinking about it. 

He'd picked her up after class and they'd come back, Veronica more than a little worried because she hadn't been able to contact Logan throughout the day. What Casey would remember most about that afternoon was Veronica charging through the house on a mission, calling Logan's name and, finding nothing but a ransacked wardrobe in his bedroom, her frustrated, broken little cry that was almost a scream. 

Logan had left nothing, no note, no sign, just a wardrobe with various clothes missing and his cell phone and wallet with credit cards sitting neatly and plainly on his made bed. A stroke of genius, really, because every man and their dog knew Veronica would track him down in minutes. She was able, much more so than Casey, to catalogue all the missing items in his room and she'd gotten a grim look on her face, but announced that he planned to be back, she just didn't know when. 

Casey hadn't pushed the issue and waited. 

He'd fully expected Veronica to hunt him down anyway and he could see the itch in her at different times. It would be in her eyes over dinner when they lingered on the empty chair, or in the tight line of her mouth when she was too quiet and thinking. Casey could read the temptation in the placing of her limbs, the expression on her face, in the words she didn't say. 

The most she'd done, however, was to go to one of his tutors the following week and express concern for his grades and courses in his absence. Casey had been able to read the anger and betrayal in her eyes as she'd told him that the professor had calmly explained that Logan had arranged to study by correspondence and was sending all his work in through email. She hadn't gone to any further professors and had declared she would leave Logan to his own devices. 

But Casey could still read the need humming under her skin. 

He spent his time hanging back. 

Veronica had slept in her room for the following six nights and Casey hadn't blinked. He'd made dinner and folded the laundry with her, drove her to college some days, rode with her the others, joked and laughed and commiserated. The very embodiment of casual that she'd asked for. He'd let her set the schedule and watched as she eased back into something she was more comfortable with. When she did come to his room nearly a week later, he hadn't made a big deal of that either. 

Since then she'd spent maybe one or two nights a week with him and they'd created their own little schedules and routines. It was completely more domestic than anything he'd ever experienced. Living with his parents had been a blur of household staff, with little more personal responsibility than choosing what outfit to wear on any given day. At Stanford, he'd been focused more on his studies and had let his various dates sort out the finer details. 

Casey found a kind of comfort in the banal details that made up his life. Deciding which nights to cook and which to do the dishes, bargaining who would take out the trash and who would drive the next morning, play fighting over which DVD to watch and surprising Veronica with ice-cream. 

He felt it ease over him like a sense of calm and he didn't let himself think about when it would end. 

But, of course, it had to. 

Thursday night was traditionally a take out night, but he'd taken the afternoon off classes to cook dinner. Lasagne, he stuck to the easier Italian dishes after a somewhat tragic incident with Thai green curry that had Veronica choking, red faced as she raced for the milk and bread. He was a 'more' cook, she'd claimed. Anything that could be improved by adding more. The Italian dishes were safer, more tomatoes, more wine, more oregano... the same theory did not work with spices and curries. 

He'd meticulously cleaned the house, set the table, made crusty garlic bread, and opened a bottle of wine to let it breathe. In his pocket sat a carefully wrapped box. Nothing too big, a bracelet, delicate and silver. She hated ostentation and fusses and he knew it was too early to do anything grand and large like he wanted. 

She wanted casual and he stood back and let it happen. 

But that night, he wondered if she remembered, if she'd even taken notice, it was three months since they'd first slept together and he considered it an anniversary of sorts. He would take his cues from her. If she was receptive to the dinner and stayed happy and calm throughout the night, he would present her with the gift. 

He secretly hoped she would, that the night would be theirs, that her accepting it might mark something of a more definite relationship between them.

When she did get home, she seemed surprised, but didn't say anything. It turned into a good night, they talked and laughed and she didn't question the elaboration. In fact, she steered the conversation quite skilfully around their friends and their classes and certain professors they both had and ones they'd previously discussed and made fun of. And she did it all with a slightly panicked, cornered look in her eyes. Neither of them brought up their missing housemate or their current sleeping arrangements. 

Casey began to suspect that she both understood the significance of the night and feared actually acknowledging it. 

The bracelet began to burn a hole in his pocket, itching, and he swirled his wine in his glass and waited for the right time to bring it out. 

"Wow. Am I interrupting something?"

Casey cringed at the voice. 

Veronica's mouth flew open for several seconds and then her entire body flew out of the chair. 

"Logan!"

For a brief second, Casey seriously considered the awkwardness of having to watch her embrace him, the inevitable slide of Logan’s arms around her waist, the knowledge that his and Veronica’s time was over. But then Veronica stopped a foot away from actually throwing her arms around him and her face fell, slipped into a dulled blankness. 

He wondered if Logan could see it, if maybe Logan had noticed it before she’d even jumped up, the friction that hummed underneath her skin. Anger, hurt, betrayal, she was practically leaking the need to yell. 

Logan did not defend himself, he waited calmly and Casey watched, curious, as he slipped out of his chair to stand up. Veronica lost more of her control and she shook as she wrapped her arms around her torso, eyes watering and biting her lip. 

“I’m sorry.” Logan said, eventually, calm and even. “I had some things I needed to sort out.”

In Casey’s mind, that’s when Veronica exploded, yelling at Logan, slapping him, storming off in a righteous anger. Anything, anything at all. But that’s not exactly what happened and he stood back and watched, hovering, as Veronica breathed deeply for several seconds, collected herself, and merely nodded before returning back to her seat at the table. 

Logan and Casey stood awkwardly, watching each other for several seconds, unsure of what to do. 

“Casey?” Veronica’s voice came, sweet and acidic. “Are you coming?”

He’d spent winters in Aspen before, he’d actually spent one afternoon when he was fourteen with his leg trapped under a fall of snow with a broken ankle until they’d found him, and the drop of temperature in the room just then almost reminded him of that feeling. 

With an almost apologetic grimace, he left Logan to the abyss that was the doorway and took back his seat. 

“I... I guess I’ll just...” Logan waved vaguely back to the door. “... go.”

Veronica breathed in before looking up. 

“Have you eaten?”

It was the closest thing Logan was going to get to an invitation and everyone in the room knew it. Casey read the uncertainty in Logan’s eyes and the determination in Veronica’s, he could also read the wafer thin veneer she’d put up and the violent running fragility underneath. 

He knew if Logan walked out again, she would not take it well. 

“Look, man.” He pointed towards the kitchen. “There’s plenty left in the oven, grab a plate.”

And just like that, at Logan’s nod, the room breathed easier. 

He went to the cupboard to get another wineglass as Logan went to serve himself some dinner and nobody seemed to know what to say. He twisted the stem of the glass between his fingers as he sat back down at the table, fidgeted for several seconds before he forced himself to put it down. 

“Sorry.”

His head snapped up at the soft, whispering voice and he saw her face pointed straight down at her plate, at the hand idly poking a fork at her salad. 

“No, it’s...”

But he stopped, because the words were superficial and he didn’t really want to say that everything was okay, because it wasn’t. 

“Tonight, of all...” Her fingers clenched around the fork and she breathed in deeply, a shuddering sound. “Everything is so nice, Casey, it’s perfect, and...”

He scooted his chair in closer, so that they were almost touching around the corner of the table, close enough so that he could touch her. He cupped the back of her head softly and drew her forehead to his mouth. 

“Sh. It doesn’t matter, okay? If it’s what you want, I’ll play nice. For you. You don’t even need to ask.”

His lips pressed into her skin and it was singularly the gentlest, most intimate thing they’d done and he wasn’t sure if he was more surprised at his own need to do it or the fact that she’d allowed it, that she sat pliant in his hold for several moments. 

Above her head, in the doorway to the kitchen, Casey saw Logan watching, frozen with a plate of lasagne in his hands. 

He kept still for several seconds before letting her go, eye contact maintained, and sat up straight. 

Sound returned as Logan coughed his entrance and walked to the table as if he hadn’t seen a thing. They began to eat again, finishing the meal, and eventually the heavy awkwardness melted into something resembling conversation. They talked about the larger, inconsequential things, Wallace and Mac and Dick, Keith and Backup, lecturers at the college. 

Nobody asked Logan where he’d been and he didn’t ask them what they’d been doing when he was gone. 

Later, well after they’d all said goodnight, the last thing Casey expected was for Veronica to slip into his room. He was not sure what to expect from her, what changes this would bring. Truthfully, he was scared and just that little bit resentful. 

“Thank you.” 

The only thing she said as she crossed the room in the near dark. He watched the shadow of her reach up to him and felt her hands on the collar of his shirt, that little tug as she pulled herself up and the hot little sear of a kiss at the side of his chin. 

Casey stood still. 

She faltered, just for a second, then returned with clear determination, lips pressing more firmly against his jaw.

“Veronica.” 

It was barely more than a whisper, a quiet little warning. 

“Please.”

She whispered back and her forefinger reached underneath the top button of his shirt and scratched at the skin she found there, her mouth closed over the side of his neck and he closed his eyes at the hot, wet feel of her tongue. His hands bunched themselves together in little fists to keep from closing in around her body.

“I don’t...” But he stopped midsentence with a gasp, a deep groan as her kisses turned to suction, one hand flat on the curve of his chest, fingers playing idle patterns against his nipple through his shirt. “Not right now.”

She crumpled, body curving neatly into his and it took a herculean effort on his part not to wrap his arms around her then, instead he reached up and took her hands in his, pried her arms away from him. 

“I don’t want you to sleep with me and think of him.”

A strangled little choking gasp burst out of her throat and then she looked up. 

“I’m not...” But the anger burned out quickly, replaced by a quiet understanding. “It’s not like that, Casey. It’s not about him tonight, okay?”

And when she kissed him again, hot open mouth on his jaw, he did not have the strength to say no a second time. 

He cupped the back of her hips, hands tracing a line up the curve of her spine, the knobs of bone he was beginning to know all too well, as she slipped her fingers back under the buttons of his shirt and flicked them open easily. 

Something about it was different and slow and they took their time undressing each other, Veronica raising her eyebrow only once when the wrapped gift in his pocket fell with an obvious thunk to the floor in his pants, but Casey dismissed it as nothing with a stroke of her cheek and a light kiss to her nose, her mouth, her chin. 

She forgot to ask about it as she let her head fall back and he laved his tongue down her neck, stripped her shirt from her shoulders and unbuttoned her pants. Her body was slim and compact, but still his hands felt too small to fully encompass it. He wanted to touch all of her at once. 

He kissed and nuzzled her breasts into peaked submission until she was a twisting, writhing mass underneath him on the bed, until her fingers gripped his hair in clumps and she moaned her pleas. It was a soft, smothered, swallowed sound and he appreciated the sudden need for discretion, allowed her that small privacy. 

A savage part of him, feral, the side that had maintained the predatory warning glare with Logan over her head ached to push her further, to make her moan out loud, to declare violent and strong what they were doing and how well they were doing it, but the larger, saner side of himself reined him in, recognised the selfishness for what it was and refused to ruin everything to satisfy it. 

It was slow and drawn out to her first orgasm, a gradual build to a crescendo of whimpers and a gasp in the side of his neck, fingernails gripping hard in his skin and thighs clenched around his hips. He was hard and friction sore by the time they got to taking off his boxer shorts, tender to the touch. 

No matter what happened, he wanted to remember her like this. 

***

In Logan’s mind, there was no real end to their relationship. 

That was impossible, unthinkable, not worth wasting brain power on, because they were _Logan and Veronica_ and even if they had years of being apart and seeing other people, they would always drift back together and find each other. Always. It was inevitable. No ifs, buts or maybes. 

That’s how the world worked in Logan’s mind. 

And then he left her for six weeks. 

To think. 

To be honest, Logan’s forte was never thinking. The more he thought the more trouble he got himself in. As evidenced by his entire history with Veronica. It never worked because he over analysed every single move and word and action on her part, obsessed about it for days on end, and came to his own inevitably wrong conclusions. 

It had just gotten too much. He knew it before he’d even stumbled home drunk that night, bitter and overly honest and ready for a confrontation, but too smashed to really get into it. Casey had borne the brunt of his over share and he was glad for that, he had no idea what he would have said to Veronica herself. It wouldn’t have been pretty. 

He’d been stewing in his own bile and so, with a raging hangover and dangerously low hydration, he’d packed a bag and driven. One of his friends in philosophy had a cabin several hours drive away, one that Veronica did not know about, and it offered a privacy he hadn’t even known he’d planned on until he’d needed it. 

It was a drastic move, almost primal, he’d gone back to basics and packed nothing but clothes and a stack of cash. He’d bought food when he was there and stayed in the cabin with no television, at least to begin with, and only used his laptop to complete assignments. He’d chopped wood, with uneven results, even though there was already a ready supply waiting to be used, he’d hiked in trees, walked without destination for crying out loud, and did rugged bushland-y type things people always bragged about when going back to nature and discovering themselves. 

It had been a self imposed isolation, a stripping back of everything in his life, to give him room to truly examine himself and his motivations. 

He hadn’t always liked what he’d seen, but there’d been enough good in there to outweigh the bad. They’d all been dealt a shitty hand and he hadn’t always acted with anyone’s best interest in mind, but he had worked twice as hard to make up for his mistakes than he had making them in the first place. 

One thing was for certain, he wanted Veronica more than that he needed her. 

He sweated his anger out, walked and chopped and ran the Rocky theme in his head, forced himself to breathlessness and aching muscles every day until he fell into his bed and slept great, black dreamless sleeps, until he woke cramped and ravenous. 

And every time he felt the anger and viciousness return, he pushed himself further and stayed that much longer.

It was a self imposed detox, a cleansing of everything that made him sabotage his own life. 

The eagerness had built in ever increasing increments the closer he’d gotten to Neptune. The air was fresher, the music on the radio clearer, the sky bluer and his own head cleaner than ever before. He’d been willing to bet that Veronica, to keep the theme, was even more beautiful. 

He was ready, prepared, already set in his mind to walk into the house and see them together. That was the logical progression. He could be adult about it. That’s how he’d left them and he’d certainly given neither of them any reason to think otherwise. 

They were casual and they were sleeping together and none of that was news to him, he could accept that. She had every right to find solace and gratification where she could; he’d certainly been doing that his whole life. In fact, if it made her happy, he’d stand back and hope for the best. 

He could do it. 

And then he’d walked in on them, all cosy and snug having a romantic dinner for two and he’d known, even before Casey had eye balled him over her head, laying obvious claim, Logan had known the shift. 

They weren’t just casual anymore. 

The hope he’d had in his heart that, maybe, her and Casey would be petering out soon or that he would notice Veronica wasn’t as happy as she could have been died a little. Logan would not be swooping in to pick up the pieces of anything any time soon. 

But he’d taken a breath and continued the night, ate the food without tasting it, talked without remembering anything that had been said and then wished them both a goodnight and gone to unpack his bags without waiting to see what they did or whose room they did it in. 

He hadn’t been expecting the light knock on his door or the footstep that was too light to be anyone but her after he expressly hadn’t answered. 

“I didn’t look.” She’d said like an offering. “I didn’t look for you, Logan, I gave you the space...”

Maybe they were both growing as people and two years ago his heart would have been overjoyed to hear that sentence. He’d closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest and hadn’t turned around. 

“I’m sorry.” Her voice had risen slightly, a sure indicator of her stress and emotional turmoil. “I never wanted this to hurt you. I tried...”

“I’m a grown man, Veronica.” Even as the words had left his mouth, he’d realized the truth in them. They were no longer emotionally screwed up teenagers, they were adults doing the best they could. “I can handle it.”

The silence had been thin and crystal, easily broken by the soft thudding of her feet against his carpet. One, two, three steps, then nothing. 

“I would have done anything.” She’d whispered to his back. “Gone anywhere, Logan. I would have done anything for you. Do you even understand that? And you threw it away.”

The sudden bitterness in her tone had made him cringe, the fragile crust of it that hid the betrayal underneath. 

“I was...”

“Oh, I get it, Logan, I understand. I know exactly why you did it, but that...” She’d paused, breathed and reconsidered, calmer. “It doesn’t change the fact that you did it and it hurt. And I can’t wait forever. I wanted to, but... I can’t. Do you get that?”

A flicker of the old anger and injustice fought to rise in him, but he quashed it, swallowed it, and nodded. He'd wanted to grab her then, close his hand around her wrist and pull her to him, fold her smaller body into his the way he loved to do. 

“I’m not doing this to hurt you, do you understand that?” She’d waited then, tentative, and he’d given her another nod. “It’s not about you or him, it’s about me. I need this.”

Her voice had stretched on the word need, elongated the vowels, drawn it out in a sound that frustrated him. She was close to cracking and he knew how much it cost her to divulge this much. He’d wanted to turn then and give her anything she’d asked for, but she’d had to get it out. 

“He’s good for me right now, Logan, can you see that? I’m happy.”

The ghost of her fingertips had touched his back then, in the middle of his shoulder blades, a fraction too far to the left to be directly on his spine. 

“Please.”

She hadn’t said anything else, but he’d known what she was asking. Please let me have this, please don’t fuck it up anymore than we both already have, please let this run its course. 

And, as Logan lay in bed that night, knowing without really listening that she’d gone to Casey’s room, he stared at the ceiling. His room was large, not as large as Veronica’s but larger than Casey’s, and he’d lived in large rooms all his life, mansions and townhouses and hotel suites. This one, however, felt too large. 

Not large, lonely. 

He imagined, like he’d done thousands of times before, sharing the room with Veronica, filling it with her things, little touches that screamed her presence, her scent in his bed, her clothes mixed with his in the closet. It didn’t hurt this time, not like it usually did. 

It might still happen, he thought, eventually, but he couldn’t force it. He could wait for her; he could wait as long as she needed. He’d waited long enough as it was. She needed this, he reasoned, stepping back and examining the situation from a newly liberating objective standpoint. 

Veronica was dating Casey, she was sleeping with him, and Logan had dated other girls before, had slept with numerous of them, eventually in the long run they would mean nothing, a journey to an end. Five years or ten, the end would be the same, he and Veronica together. 

Right now, she needed security and safety and the certainty that came with it, the non-pressure of the predictability. But they had all been there before. 

Veronica was not a long term casual player, she would eventually require something more challenging and Logan would be there for her when she was ready. 

Logan lay in bed and thought: Casey, you poor bastard. 

***

Veronica felt the buckle approaching. 

It wasn’t anything tangible. Things seemed to calm down after Logan’s return and there were certainly no confrontations or melt downs that anyone could point to. There weren’t even any simmering resentments threaded underneath daily life. Logan slid back into the household routine and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. 

Well, everyone but Veronica. 

It was just… a feeling… an inward tug of war that she was never quite sure was real or just part of her guilt ridden imagination. The expectation was familiar, a dull, thick feeling that came with the wait. It had happened her senior year of high school. 

All those months dodging the showdown she knew had been there between Duncan and Logan, simmering beneath the surface of their newly reformed friendship. The similarities were not lost on her. Two relationships chosen for their stability and the safety they offered, undermined by Logan and the constant heat he bought. 

She would never be free of Logan, no matter how much she told herself and others that they were through and over. He would always be there, even when he wasn’t physically near. 

She almost hated him for that, resented him with a passion that was overwhelming and yet it never fully developed, it was always cushioned and softened by the tiny part of her that had never healed. That small, ulcerated little wound that was her mother and Lilly and Duncan and everyone she had ever trusted and relied upon leaving her. 

Her father and Logan were the only constants in her life and she couldn’t change that, didn’t think she would ever be able to. 

And amongst all that, there was Casey. 

Reliable, steady, wonderful, loving Casey who practically bled concern for her. He liked to play it cool, mostly she believed because she demanded it that way, but she could feel it humming under his skin, those aborted little gestures that said he was holding back. 

She knew she wasn’t being entirely fair, that with one word to Casey he would willingly and easily be the devoted lover and boyfriend. As it was, he was leashed with the title of casual. 

Veronica wanted Casey. It wasn’t a passing phase, some brief, transient craving that had wafted by. He wasn’t a box of noodles late on a Wednesday night when nobody could be bothered cooking. Veronica wanted Casey, handsome, kind, gentle, thoughtful Casey, in a way that she had no words for. 

Little things about him made her happy. 

Given enough time, if things progressed the way they were, she was certain he would break down her walls and then she’d be lost, in love, devoted to him. Gone again. It scared her, his comfort and ease and security, the lure of it, how easy and beautiful the entirety of it was, much like Logan’s heat and passion and power scared her. 

She was going to get lost. It wasn’t a matter of maybes anymore, Veronica knew the signs, she could read patterns when they presented themselves, when they took a four by four and bludgeoned her over the head. 

And she had only recently found a good place in her life, happy and loved and loving, doing well in college, secure in a way she hadn’t been since before Lilly died. 

A grin, sly and amused and sudden, burst on her face when she thought about Lilly. Her brain asked the question, What would Lilly do? And then it answered itself in the same instant. Screw them both. At the same time. Ménage-à-trois. She’d go for the most preposterous solution possible and make it work. Lilly would love the situation Veronica was in now, she would have loved to see the drama Veronica created around herself. 

The grin faded. 

“Hey.” Logan’s voice startled her out of her reverie and she sat up straighter on the sofa. “The DVD store was out of anything remotely good and I’ll be damned if you make me watch The Big Lebowski one more time, so I just chose these ones randomly off the shelf, I hope that’s okay.”

He flopped down on the sofa and held up two DVD covers in his hand, her eyes briefly skimmed the covers for the titles, but nothing caught her eye. His words petered out as he took a closer look at her, then around at the otherwise empty room. 

“Where’s Case?”

She was pretty sure her smile was mostly genuine, if a little weak. 

“There was a problem at the publishing house. Some great publishing emergency that couldn’t wait.” And as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the disappointment in her voice. “Maybe they ran out of ‘g’s, I don’t know.”

Logan’s eyes grew wide. She knew what he was thinking. DVD Monday was sacrosanct. He exhaled in a careful, precise manner and she could see the wheels turning in his head. 

“Okay then.” Before she knew it, he was leaning forward and placing the covers on the table before standing up, brushing his hands on his legs. “I’ll just go. Study or something.”

He was lost and confused and floundering and it cut her. She couldn’t stand the fragility of their existence now, hated what they had become, these strange nervous creatures dancing around each other as if there was a fuse between them. 

“No, Logan, wait.” A small, hopeful smile and a shoulder hike towards the large bowl of popcorn on the side table. “Don’t go. Surely we can watch a movie together.”

There was doubt in his eyes, a nervousness that annoyed her, galled her, that she recognised as her own. 

“Ooooookay.” His hands didn’t stop brushing the front of his pants as he eased himself back down next to her. “This should be buckets of fun.”

But his voice was friendly underneath the fear and awkwardness and she latched onto that, that small piece of hope she found there, trying to rekindle something, that friendship they’d shared over the last few years under this roof. She could feel him slipping away and that scared her more than anything. 

It was awkward and horrible and every cell of her being could feel him sitting next to her as they began one of the movies in silence, hyper aware of his each and every movement. 

At least, for a little while, but pretty soon they found a common interest. 

“This movie sucks, Logan.”

He laughed, a rough bubbling sound in his throat, and just like that things were okay. They made fun of the movie as it happened, adding voices and commentary and throwing pieces of popcorn at the screen. It was beautiful and wonderful and soothed something in her. 

The six weeks he’d been gone were bad enough, but if he left her life forever she had no idea how she would continue. That they were able to relax and enjoy a movie and not have to worry about all the stress and tension that could ignite between them was enough to ease the growing knot in her belly. 

She missed him, had missed him for a long time, not just the physical Logan, but her friend and confidante and rock and she could tell by the brightness in his eyes, the relaxed expression in his face, the lack of pinched skin at the corners of his eyes that he felt it too. 

“This movie sucks worse than the Southpark movie, Mars.”

A snort choked itself up in her throat and she batted the back of his head. 

“Don’t knock Southpark, that’s quality cinema.”

Logan rolled his eyes as he leaned his head back on the sofa cushion, turning his head to look at her. 

“Yeah, for twelve year olds. You realise we’re in our twenties, right?”

She batted him again, a light hearted little push between friends, but his right hand came up lightning quick and caught her wrist, deflected it easily as he twisted in his seat and pinned her arm to the sofa. 

“Alright, that’s it!”

As he lifted up on his knees, Veronica knew. She knew and she could do nothing to stop it as her legs pushed up and she began scooting backwards. 

“No. No, Logan…” 

But he didn’t listen and his fingers sought out the squirmish, ticklish spots at the sides of her ribs that he knew so well. Her laughs burst out of her mouth, loud and strident and slightly panicked as she tried to push backwards and away, her feet scrambling on the edge of the sofa. 

“Logan, wait!” Her spine arched as she struggled backwards, even as her free hand sought out the spots she knew by heart, that tiny little weakness under his fourth rib that buckled him over in laughter, the sensitive dips of his waist. “No fair! You’re not supposed to tickle!”

“Then stop hitting me!”

They were both laughing and breathing hard and in the same instant they realised exactly what they were doing, with Logan leaning over her, their proximity, their fingers twined together. The laughter stopped and she could feel the depths of his breaths in the weight of his chest pressing down on her. 

His eyes, they were always her weakness, large brown pools of want and need and desire and her mouth ran dry. 

“Logan.”

It was supposed to be a warning, a signal, the point for him to back away, but even Veronica was surprised with the thick need in her voice, the invitation. A few scant inches and she could be kissing him. Part of her wanted to, was desperate to do it, just stretch up and capture his mouth with her, could remember the sweetness and hotness and fire of his kiss, his need.

Her body betrayed her, not letting go when she told it to, not getting up and pushing away from him. It was too comfortable there, lying with him half on top of her, pressed together, familiar. 

“Veronica.”

And Logan’s voice was no different to hers, perhaps a little bit more tortured. 

“We can’t do this.” She agreed. “We just can’t.”

His eyes were breaking just above her and she could read the temptation warring with his conscience inside the brown depths. Aaron had left the same scars in him that Lianne had in her and neither of them wanted it, not this way. 

“I know.” Logan sighed, tired and worn down and regretful. “I know.”

And he ducked his head down, rested it inside her neck and she let him, wrapped her hands around his back as they breathed together for just a second, a minute, his warm breath gusting out over her neck and pushing goose pimples to the surface. 

She thought about the last few years, all those clients and their faces when they got confirmation of their cheating partners, about watching her father’s head bowing in the darkness when he thought she’d gone to sleep, about the destruction Lilly had left behind, the betrayals of Duncan and Meg and her Dad and Harmony, Logan and Madison, Aaron and what he had to Lynn. It all coalesced in her brain to one big stain, spreading out now over her skin.

Then she did push him up, scrambled out from under him and stood. Regret coursed through her, disappointment, the knowledge of how doomed and damaged they still were and would always be. 

“I can’t be that girl again, Logan, I just can’t.”

And then Veronica ran. 

***

It was late when Casey finally got home, sometime after eleven, and he was tired. If he had been thinking at all, he would have paid more attention to the car missing from the front of the house. He noted it with a puzzled air, blindly assuming Veronica had parked inside the garage. Granted, it was a strange thing to do, but it wasn’t without precedence. 

He was actually hoping she was still awake. He wanted to apologise for leaving her that afternoon when he knew she’d had her heart set on chilling out in front of a movie. The thought of wrapping his arm around her slender waist and pulling body against him was all too tempting.

Casey was hoping he could convince her to sleep in his room tonight. 

The second thing to scratch at his brain, a crack in the routine, was the lack of skittering paws on the floor, the eager snuffling nose nuzzling into his hand. The house was quiet. Too quiet. 

And then he looked around. 

Properly. 

The shelves were too blank and the shoe rack Veronica had put in the hall after months of arguing with both he and Logan about leaving shoes around, that was half empty. No female shoes were sitting there. There were notable gaps in the DVD and CD shelves. Her laptop was missing. 

Everything that was Veronica in the house was gone. 

She wouldn't leave him without saying anything. Surely. He knew that much. Without a goodbye or an explanation, she would not disappear, she knew too deeply how much that cut. With that knowledge, he did not call out for Logan or make any kind of scene. 

It was walking into his room, however, to see the crisp, white, folded piece of paper on his pillow, that really hit where it hurt. 

When he walked back out, he was not surprised to see Logan sitting at the kitchen counter, and less surprised to see the open beer Logan pushed across the bench towards him. 

They clinked the necks together. 

“It happened.” He prompted, expression drained from his voice. 

Logan, at least, had the grace to look ashamed. 

“Yeah.”

 

***  
complete.


End file.
